Today my thoughts have been with those who have lost someone in all of this madness. Partners, family members, patients, residents, colleagues. As we know this disease does not discriminate and everyone is equally vulnerable. I have read many stories about fellow health care workers who have been lost, some in places that I have worked, possibly some I have crossed paths with and never known. Whilst I know that it surrounds us, there is something that brings it home when its a death connected to a person or place that you have known. I have come across colleagues that have used the word frightened, I know for a fact having managed a care home in the past that there will be many staff staying on site in their workplaces rather than going home. This is not only due to the fact that they are scared about taking this disease back home to young family or vulnerable household contacts, but also purely to care for those in their places of work. When you work in a care home you really get to know the residents, they become like your own family and I am well aware of the personal sacrifice that those unsung heroes are making every day.

I listen into the daily briefings, and it has occurred to me that we need more personal stories. In all of the training sessions that I have ever had as a nurse, the patient or personal stories always resonated with me. To have someone say it as it is, with emotion and feeling carries so much more weight. I am at the stage now living and breathing this disease that it is making me angry. I don’t want people to have to lose anyone they care for whether at work, in social or personal lives. I want the people who think they are invincible, continue to flout the rules and foolishly think this will never happen to them to have to listen to the reality of this, the potential it has to devastate people. Some of the media coverage has focused on statistics/figures/data, whilst this has a place, it is always peoples voices that speak the loudest and leave us all with something to think about.