ISRRT_COVID-19_book

precise) and having a general chitchat. Some people took me up on my offer to pack their
shopping neatly in a bag with bread and eggs at the top. And whilst the coronavirus was all
over the news nobody mentioned it or spoke of it, nobody wore facemasks and hardly
anybody was using hand sanitiser. There was still an air of “Keep Calm and Carry on”. In
hindsight, I did observe that lots of prosecco, chocolates and flowers were purchased but no
toilet rolls. During the pandemic for whatever reason toilet rolls were purchased in high
numbers and nobody could explain why
Week Commencing 9 th March 2020 – The Cheltenham Festival
It was only when my husband (who works in horse racing) was attending the Cheltenham
festival in March 2020 that I started to think about his safety in a huge crowd – what if
somebody had the virus? This worried me as my husband has asthma and we had spoken
about if he ever contracted the Illness he would probably end up hospitalised due to his
respiratory impairment. However, he had been unwell 2 weeks previous with what we
thought was a head cold, temperature and cough so we guessed that this bout of illness would
have probably strengthened his immune system. Therefore, off he went with his bags packed
for a week away with gallons of hand sanitiser but no facemasks - as that was not stipulated
in UK guidance in early March 2020. Luckily enough he returned unscathed after having quite
a successful festival and did not suffer any effects of being in a large crowd. Since then, we
have found out that an acquaintance that was at the festival, who was with a group of friends
having a day out were not so lucky – one of the group unfortunately contracted COVID-19 and
subsequently died from it. There was now the sudden realisation that this was a really
dangerous situation!
Week commencing 16 th March
This week was spent mainly making arrangements and getting everything organised. I was
watching what was happening in China, Italy and Spain and observing, remotely, their clinical
practice, as we would need to do the same here! I encouraged all staff to make sure that their
resuscitation training was up to date and in line with new corona virus guidelines, that
everybody was PPE fit tested and that we had enough PPE in the department for the start of
the wave of patients that were coming our way. I sent a group of radiographers to go and get
PPE fit tested on a ward only for all of them to be turned away and told they did not need fit
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