We’d say we were immune or invulnerable to it because we could going out into risky situations, to bars and things like, you know, following the rules and stuff but, when you’re out, people are drinking and you’re in those kind of environments, you feel less susceptible and this feels less dangerous and you just a lot of time, people might get closer to you than you’re supposed to get closer to and then buildings aren’t ventilated like you think they should, you know, you know they should be. And each of those times I went out in the summer and in the well, late spring here every time I went out, I didn’t catch it so I felt particularly, I felt invulnerable. Well, felt less susceptible to it than I it turned out I was.

Yeah I wasn’t so worried myself because I don’t have any underlying, you know, illnesses, well I mean I didn’t know that, that wasn’t really the fact you could still actually get it even through you didn’t have, I mean get it bad and also that I was quite young, I’m 53 now I was 52 when it happened, and I felt, you know, I can handle this I’ve been, I’ve had flu before and I’ve had this and that and yeah I felt strong. So no I wasn’t worried.

I take no medication. I’ve never done because of the physical activity and diet and lifestyle that I lead with my family. We eat very healthily. So, this is why the doctor said my immune system was not compromised. I don’t do fast food. I don’t do junk food. We eat freshly every day. We don’t do fry ups. We boil, we bake, we steam, we grill and we roast in our household. I do a range of physical activities such as Pilates, yoga, Zumba.

And how I looked at it is, you couldn’t find, I couldn’t find the answer to a lot of questions online because that was the only place I could look. The health visitors don’t know. The specialists at the hospital didn’t know. The midwives couldn’t tell me so you, I always, you know, I even did everything, you know. And I didn’t know so then I’d look online saying is it more risky for me as a pregnant lady? Is my child, if I get it now, is my child going to born with it?

My brothers had recently had a, they got married and had a Covid wedding [laughs]. They just drove down, picked their wives up, the wives moved in, and we had a virtual wedding, and we were sat there, and my mum would keep going, “Oh it doesn't matter if you know, got yourself tested. Let’s create a bubble and what have you.” And we kept reinforcing the fact that mum and dad you’re Asian, you’re diabetic. All of the risks and risks under the sun absolutely convinced mum to leave her job. Convinced dad to leave his job. Again, we were more interested in their life than anything else. So, both mum and dad, actually yeah, for that reason came out. My dad is a imam, one of the muftis so he is a huge public figure and lots of the community were depending on him.

Myself personally I wasn’t, I wasn’t worried by it because I don’t really have any health problems that you know, could that would affect it really. But I was worried for like people like my nan and my best friend she’s very vulnerable. So people that, it wasn’t so much me getting it, it was me getting it and not knowing I had it and then passing it to all these people without knowing. That was what was more scary than the actual me getting it. Because I mean I couldn’t really, it doesn’t really matter, if I got it I got it, it wouldn’t really have affected me but my mum, she’s got lots of health problems, my nan, so does my best friend, and I see them pretty much every day. So it was very hard for me to sort of come to terms with the fact that yes, fair enough if I got it, but then if I got it I couldn’t go anywhere because I didn’t want anyone else to catch it.

You don’t know with our service users because also like they were isolated. All of them were in their shielding and we are the only person who go in and out of the service. And we are the one who brought Covid. It’s not him. They did not leave, you know. You feel that sense of guilt as well [sighs]. Ahh dear.

I was worried about my family, because I had also managed to see them in between those two dates. I saw them in the middle of the week, and I actually hugged, I think my mum, or [stepdad], and they actually didn’t get it, which is kind of miraculous in hindsight. But once I realised that I probably had it, I was obviously racked with guilt because, my mum’s pretty fit and healthy, I was worried about [name], my sister who is 9. And even though I knew intellectually that, you know, children weren’t at that point, didn’t seem to be getting it that badly, I was also really concerned about [name] my stepdad, because he had cancer not that long ago, he had that in 2016. And I didn’t really know what state his immune system was in, and I was really, really concerned that I had put them in danger of getting it and getting it badly.

Just as we were prepared to do this actually so that was the weekend and then the Monday after that, we all felt slightly unwell and initially, so that was mid-March I think or the week, just a week before lockdown was announced, the first lockdown and it felt really sort of strange because the symptoms were what you might describe for anxiety attacks so, you know, short of breath and a bit tired but I wasn’t very unwell, I had maybe a ti-, tiny fever but not, not very much. It was mostly this sort of short of breath and I was like, ‘But am I just really anxious?’ I’ve been anxious for three months now, is it just me being over the top and but my husband was more unwell, he had more like flu-type syndrome, symptoms and, and this sort of made it clear to us that it wasn’t just anxiety, it was something real.