I think Covid really affected our community and that’s where people are hiding and they are saying we are poison, if you go near people, they are sick. We are very affected. We are the one whose gonna spread the germs around, you know. So, obviously, that’s how they, media and the public are portraying the community. If you had never dealt with BME people, never communicated. You hear this is the news, what do you hear? You hear the negative things. Negative things goes into your head. As soon as you see a BME, a black person on the street, you want to go away from them. They are the most affected person that’s it. If you go near them, that’s it, you’re killed, next day.

Do you feel like if you are a white person, in the same situation, you know, your husband going to hospital, everybody feeling frightened about what’s happening, the care you received would be different?
 
I think it will be. ‘Cause I’ve seen it with the white people how they do it. I’ve seen all this.
 
Can you, can you elaborate and how does it, how is it different?
 
How is it different, for example, when it’s a white person, you see the way they talk to them. You see the way they talk to them. The language tone they use. The things you use and when you’re an Asian person, they just want to do everything quick, quick, quick. Throw you out the door. You are done. That’s it. I understand, but not everybody can.
 
In the care home because I know one of my managers and I said, “Oh God, look at the way.” If it’s, if it’s the white client and they got something straight away called the ambulance, okay and the way they described it. When the Asian person then they say, “He’s always moaning about this. He’s always doing this. He’s got nothing.” I said, “How do you know he hasn’t got a pain?”, and she said, “Oh, Shirin you should stop talking. You’re a kitchen assistant. You go back to your job.”

I think my brother said that I, I wasn’t very keen on having the vaccine at the beginning. My brother said, “No, go and have it. Don’t listen to the news. Don’t listen to other people.” There were people saying they were putting like animal things, not halal and not haram and had been checked by the Iman and everything. And my brother said, “It depends on each individual condition how the vaccines, all medications are like every medication whether you take Paracetamol, any medication they all have side effects afterwards.”

I think the news that we had especially if you’re from black and ethnic minority they’re not able to speak the language, express yourself, and if you’re an older person, they just left you to one side and ignored you while they were dealing with other people. So, basically, hearing people who had actually gone into hospital, they were saying that kind of thing, so we, we became very worried with things. So, I was sort of like reluctant to send my husband to hospital when we did find out he’s got Covid and we all became positive, you know. And my daughter was really, her, one of her friends was a nurse and she was training to be a nurse in the, I says, “[Name], don’t worry, ‘cos I work there. Don’t listen to the people. They’re gonna not do that.” So, she said, “You sure you gotta be able to go and see my dad if something happens.” And she said, “Yes.” And then she said that, “Don’t worry, your dad can speak English. I don’t think there should be any problem. And then you can always have Facetime and talk to them on the phone.” So, we did send him after, but then afterwards, we were a bit worried that he was on oxygen for quite long, ten days. So, it was a worry because you hear of people, but thank god he came back.

Shirin: And then there was another negative things where you hearing from people’s experience, oh, I actually talked to someone who works in a hospital and he said to me, he’s a nurse in hospital [hospital name]. He was saying like, “You know, if you’re old and especially you’re from a black and ethnic minority community, they don’t really care. They just leave you at one side because they’re more concerned about the…younger people.”
 
Mohammed: Yes, we heard this rumour!
 
Shirin: Younger people. So, you got worried, and I said oh my God, I’m not sending my husband to hospital if he becomes with Covid.
 
Mohammed: When I, when I realised, I had Covid, I was somewhere reluctant to go to hospital. But my daughter forced me to go to hospital, she called the ambulance and sent me to hospital. I heard one of the story, in London, on my nephews says, one of the gentleman, he went to hospital with Covid, and after an hour, the hospital declared he’d died. And they were really concerned. The family was concerned that, they realised that the hospital is not really any sort of proper treatment, because of his age. So, I was really concerned. That’s why I was afraid, I was worried about, not to go to hospital [laughs]. Although, after I went to hospital I just said, they treated me well, of course.
 

I something from, I had some temperature, I lost my appetite and the taste as well. I felt weak. So, these two, three things I experienced. And when I, I didn’t realise that it is a symptoms of Covid, so I talked about that, I don’t feel the taste. I cannot eat. And at that I realised that I might have Covid. I had some temperature.

Even there is a tendency among the, particularly Asian community, if one who has got Covid, they did not want to expose it. They felt that like, the Covid is a kind of sin. Sorry?
 
Like a sin did you say?
 
Yeah, yeah. They think that, yes, it’s not a good thing. So if we have Covid, if people know, other family members, or other friends know, they think themselves that they are not good people. But yeah, it changed, because this, Covid has got widespread on the wider community, then they realise that it is not an offensive thing. So.

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.