We were at a wedding about six weeks ago, got talking to, I’d not met before and it was a man about my age and his son who was 18. And we only worked out part way through the wedding, talking to someone else, his wife wasn’t there because his wife had died of Covid. And it’s almost when you make it, when you meet those. And so, it’s not just people you know well have been effected, it’s almost quite, I don’t know what the right word is, upsetting, disturbing, it has an impact when it’s, I suppose it’s people you think, well, there but for the grace of God go I, you know. It’s that element. People are totally, innocent you know, probably done, probably been washing their hands and doing whatever, they, it reminds you of the indiscriminate nature of it and that’s the thing that’s a little bit unsettling.

I remember seeing a lot of, especially round by me, like nice little suburbia, people with their kids were doing like chalk drawings on their driveways of like, you know, thank you key workers or you know, rainbows and like we’re all in this together type thing. And then when it comes down to it we’re actually not necessarily as all in this together as we might think, because of all sorts of you know, social injustices and identity issues.

Because we’re in [city], we do quite a few ethnic groups. So we did have a few that were quite poorly and then we had to deliver them and they were sick in, and we’ve got different hospitals, from where maternity is to the main intensive care. So yeah we did have quite a few vulnerable women. But not extensively, the community I live in there was an awful lot of people really poorly and a lot of deaths.

You remember they were really saying that black and minority Asian, but black and Asian and minority ethnic people are more at risk from Covid. What did you make sense of that then?
 
Shirin: I thought that was very negative. I don’t know why they had to say that in the news because you know like people.
 
Mohammed: Really scared and afraid.
 
Shirin: Not so afraid, it’s about you giving the wrong impression to other communities that we are more affected that shouldn’t be highlighted. That should be hidden agenda, confidential, isn’t it.
 
Mohammed: Yes, this was exaggerated. They’re not telling the true picture. Blaming the BME people. But Covid does not choose who is going to catch the disease [laughs].
 
Shirin: It’s for everybody. You can get it, anybody. It’s not like BME.
 

I had to continue my job because I am working at like another front worker, front line worker so I have to go but worried about myself that I have to go, if I can get the virus or not but I try to wear the mask all the time but it’s still so many closest thing like I followed, still I had like a positive like in December during the second wave.

And a bus driver died, thirty six around, bus driver died because of the Covid because they came to work. If they don’t come to work, they stay home, they not die because of our job, nature of our job. If it’s like, you know, the war time or something, you had to go to do our job because we need to run the service otherwise how people move from one place to another place. This is like backbone. [The transport system] is like a running service and like a backbone of the [city]. If they don’t run the service, no one can move from here to there.

I think from just following the guidelines back then in terms of the personal protection of PPE, but I’ve been advised by my other colleagues that, you know, we are that we’re not really being provided enough or optimum PPE compared to the WHO guideline and back then it was just a simple face mask and a plastic apron and I kind of followed that precaution and also attended the training sessions in terms of what to do and how to wear the equipment and how to tick them off and from, in terms of what I tend to do differently is perhaps because I was leading the ward round, I was trying to minimise patient contact to my other colleagues so I tried to be, you know, be the only one who is in contact with patients and my other junior colleagues who did not need to be there, I kind of, you know, make sure that they are not with me when I see the patients but they’re more at a distance in terms of recording the outcome of the ward interaction with the patients so I did all the precautions. Having said that, even before I went to my on call my other colleagues from a different hospital mentioned that I should be wearing the FFP3 mask, which is the, you know, the highest protection but at, at that stage that wasn’t really the recommendation and I just continued with the normal face mask.

My sisters, everyone keep phoning me, finding out how am I doing every day. Still telling them, “Still sick, still sick.” Blah blah blah. So they was telling me, “We told you don’t go to work. Stay home.” But, at the same time, “You need to work. You need to pay your bills.” The government is saying stay home. Okay, I said, okay, I’d rather stay home. It’s no problem but I’ve got so many bills to pay. I got my rent to pay. Who’s going to cover my cost? So it’s not easy to stay home. Unless you’re financially well off, you can’t stay home. You have to, it’s a do or die situation [laughs].

It wasn’t really worrying for us. We, we knew that we were, you know, in the fortunate white background where our kids were probably gonna be fine with it so yeah it wasn’t, it wasn’t really a concern if the children caught it.

I, every time I go into Sainsbury’s or any other supermarket I notice it. I look at the people who are stacking the shelves. I look at the people who are on the tills. They’re all minorities. Very rarely do you get an indigenous person here. They’re all, literally they are you know, you see them and the guys are bringing in truckloads of stuff and people stacking the shelves. And bus drivers, I don’t think I’ve seen a bus driver, white bus driver here. That, it’s a job they do.

I think we got to be careful there because sometimes you be because they are concentrated in one area. It might not be, it might not be a direct discrimination itself, you know, it could be because they’re all clustered together in one area, you know, as opposed to them being not looked at, but if it was in more than others, you know. Obviously the people researching it and monitoring those numbers would see what happened there.

So, I, you know, I just, I was just following up and asking myself questions. “Is it, why is it worse for the black? Is it because of the sheer skin, what is it anything else because that does this virus doesn’t like, black?” You know, you just felt like, “oh this black people, they have to get it worse for everything, you know, you get discriminated for, you know, just being the shade, even the virus does that” [laughs].
 
I felt like, “mm?” I’ve never felt like being black was such an issue until, until the virus came [laughs]. I was like, “even the virus doesn’t like you” [laughs]. So that, yeah that was quite interesting but I try to follow it up in a, looking at it in a scientific way and that was, “Why black? Is it just because of being black? Is there anything else apart from being black? What are the other factors that are perhaps unlikely to be impacting the black and then the virus makes is just, you know, a like, a catalyst to that?” or so I started thinking obviously I didn’t have the answers but I was just rejecting it can’t just be just because you’re black?

And then I started comparing because the virus went on to hit the African where, you know, where the population is all black and then “how come it doesn’t, they don’t, they’re not dying at the same rate as we feel in here?”.

In my service, the majority of my colleagues are Scottish. The majority. But they are Scottish and a middle age, okay. Okay, maybe people who did not have access to a higher education. People who are not from a higher class of course they are from a low income class and majority of them you can see that they are from the area [place names] and in [City] like East End. None of them are from West End [laughs]. Or you know like, I don’t know I think there is a relationship you know between the job that they do and their class let’s say like in the society and their age as well because majority of them were like 40 and above. And then, no I would say majority is 50 and above. Yeah 50 and above and now doing this job you know. And they have been doing it for life like they are going to retire in this job and I feel like the youngest person in there. But yeah it’s either people like that in this Scottish category or migrant people.

Long Covid is it because, you know, when somebody starts Covid they are, they’ve got a kind of long Covid strain or is it because they’ve got Covid and sadly then they’ve, life’s been busy, they’re looking after family whatever, you know, they haven’t had the time to rest. I think more women are prone to long Covid than men, you know, women to be honest are much more likely to care aren’t they for their family and put their energy into that rather than looking after their selves. That’s a generalisation but it’s often the way isn’t it.