Hi, my name's Ed Hope, I'm a junior doctor in the UK,
and for the last two weeks I've been vlogging my experiences
of being a healthcare professional on the frontline
during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Because this is such a unique thing, and the healthcare workers
are very much on the frontline in this battle,
I wanted to capture that and give my view on what's happening
on the ground.
OK, guys, this is my COVID-19 vlog number one.
The date today, Monday, the 16th of March.
My car is full of my stuff,
and that's because I'm currently living at my folks'.
So, just with everything going on, you know, they're over 70.
So I'm moving out.
I don't want to put them at risk and bring anything back.
And so I'm moving in with my boss.
She's one of the consultant anesthetists, actually,
and she's heading up the stuff at the hospital with the coronavirus.
I'm heading into work now, and I'll give you an update
as things go throughout the day.
So, finding a parking space is as bad as ever.
So far in the UK, we've had 1,372
cases of coronavirus confirmed.
Don't forget, guys, that 80 percent of people will be fine.
They'll have mild symptoms, they could stay at home,
they can manage.
So it may seem like things are bad,
you know, if we do see some cases.
But just remember that these are the people
that are really struggling from it.
Hello.
So we're just going to taste test you
to see if we can then fit mask test you.
Just tell us when you start to taste it, alright?
-Yeah, it tastes really--
It does, it's a medicinal taste.
I think it tastes like when you were a child and your mum used to say,
"Don't lick money, it's dirty."
And you think, "Right, I'm going to lick it now."
It does. It tastes like a pound coin.
OK.
We're almost up to two minutes. How long does it take?
Seven minutes.
Can you taste anything?
So you wear this when you're dealing with a very high risk.
High risk.
-You've passed.
Now take it off in there so you can show everybody what it tastes like.
He might not taste it.
Oh, God.
Pear drop time.
That tastes like... that is urgh.
That tastes horrendous.
[Frontline of COVID-19 Diary of a Doctor]
[Monday 16th of March]
So, it is 7:30 in the evening.
We are seeing query COVID-19 cases, we've had, you know, a few in today.
But I haven't seen any personally.
I've seen some people that have been low risk,
but I think their kind of symptoms were due to other things.
But obviously, we're taking precautions
in those low-risk patients.
So we're having to wear masks and aprons and gloves,
and obviously washing our hands regularly.
But, you know, we do that anyway in the emergency department,
well, everywhere in hospital.
[Tuesday 17th of March]
Good morning, all.
I'm just going to go have a quick chat to Sonia, my new landlady
and one of the consultant anesthetists at the hospital,
so someone who is going to be under huge pressure.
Welcome to the Corona House.
The Corona HQ, in terms of our lives.
-Yeah. -How are you feeling?
I mean, it feels like the whole world's gone mad.
The view that I take on this is
I've spent 20 years learning to be an intensive care consultant.
This is the crisis that I've spent my life training for.
And we are so lucky that we have a publicly funded health service
that's accessible to everyone.
This is where we're staying.
En suite as well, so that's an upgrade.
Some of the things I brought with me,
a bunch of board games.
I'm not sure who I'm going to play them with because...
we're supposed to be social distancing.
I brought this one as well.
This is probably in bad taste, called
It's actually a really good game.
Not essential, but...
the Air Jordans.
Just to keep it comfortable.
It's difficult to know how much stuff to bring
because Boris Johnson talks about getting on top of it in 12 weeks.
But this is going to go over many, many months,
so the housing situation is likely to change throughout things.
I'm off to the shops now to see how apocalyptic the panic buying is.
And also, Sonia wants some Maltesers.
No Nurofen or paracetamol.
Great.
OK, if you want gravy and vinegar, you're all right.
If you want pasta...
no pasta for anyone.
That's the bread aisle.
Yes, get in.
Got the Maltesers.
Ready for another shift in the emergency department.
Think it'll be much the same as yesterday.
It's been a fairly normal, good day.
Yes, we've seen suspected COVID-19 cases.
I'm not going to go into numbers
because they're all kind of unconfirmed.
One of the difficulties is just shortness of breath,
and respiratory illness is a common presentation to A&E.
And so we won't always know, when someone comes in, what they have.
They could just be infective exacerbation of COPD
or kind of a bacterial pneumonia,
they're the common things we'd see, you know, outside of this crisis.
So we have to really treat everyone like that
as a kind of risk for COVID-19.
And we won't know until we send the swabs off,
and often they take a couple of days to come back.
They allowed me to keep the mask.
You can't use it again, they're kind of single use.
You realize we're going to go through an awful lot of these.
I think...
in just the normal surgical masks, not these,
we went through, I think, nine boxes yesterday,
just in one day.
Just shows we're going to need a load of all types of equipment.
You hear so much about ventilators, and I know you obviously need
the staff for the ventilators as well.
But all the other things we're going to need a lot more of,
you know, potentially masks, oxygen.
People are obviously anxious,
but it's not stopping people doing their job.
And actually some of the camaraderie is as strong as ever, really.
[Thursday 19th of March]
We had some people present today with mild symptoms
that didn't need to be in hospital and were demanding to get a swab,
which is not the current advice.
By them coming into hospital, they're potentially exposing
all the other people, you know, other people with health conditions,
other vulnerable people, to the virus.
As people come in with COVID-19, what kind of things are we seeing?
The viral pneumonia that you get with things like... coronavirus
is closest to the severe pneumonia that you get with flu or influenza.
And it will typically have a sort of flu-like illness at the onset,
but with fever and cough developing into shortness of breath.
And I think that the typical feature of it is
that it affects both lungs.
Whereas a bacterial pneumonia will affect one lung,
and that's why it has a tendency to cause more severe effects.
What would be the initial treatment then for someone that comes in?
The problem we've got is that we don't have many effective treatments.
So a lot of the treatment is supportive,
so it's really about oxygen.
We, as you know, often end up giving antibiotics
because we can't be sure it's not a bacterial infection.
And so in terms of conventional treatments,
that's about where it ends.
[Sunday 22nd of March]
[5,018 confirmed COVID-19 cases]
We're already seeing changes in the UK.
You look at places like Northwick Park hospital in London
have already declared a critical incident due to the lack of ICU beds
because of the coronavirus.
If you look at all the projections it's inevitably going to be coming to
my hospital in the next days or weeks.
We just have to do all we can for preparation.
Don't forget that in 2017 the British Red Cross declared
the NHS faces a humanitarian crisis.
You have to put that stuff to the back of your mind
because it's not the time to criticize.
People need to just work with what they've got and do the best we can.
The other thing I want to highlight is testing.
So currently NHS staff aren't being tested for the coronavirus routinely.
And I saw this article in the news that a few patients
from the Portsmouth football team, so a soccer team here in the UK,
have tested positive, but they're fine, I'm glad they're doing well.
And they said they're waiting the tests for the rest of the squad.
Now, why the hell is a Premier League football team
getting their whole squad tested,
yet people in my department cannot get tested for coronavirus?
Hi, Mum!
Happy Mother's Day.
[Monday 23rd of March]
What's been happening?
So, we know that the London ICUs are now not full,
but starting to get that way.
It feels like there's a lot of people coming through the front door.
That's not the case with us.
But we've seen a real uptick in activity in the last 24 hours.
And it's interesting, actually, it's patients in their 50s and 60s mostly
that are coming in.
It's not really, really old folk.
But I'm pleased to say most of the people that I've seen
in the A&E department today have been sat there having a cup of tea,
on their mobile phones, with a bit of a low oxygen level.
And those guys are fine.
They just need a bit of supplemental oxygen for a while.
And you think these are very likely COVID cases?
Yes.
But unfortunately, there are one or two
who are coming in very, very unwell and needing to go onto ICU
and onto life support with ventilators.
Anyway, let's crack on with the shift, get into some scrubs,
and let's do this.
The time is almost 3 o'clock.
And what a change from last week,
where a few of my colleagues were seeing the COVID-19 patients.
Now pretty much half of the patients I've seen
are very high suspicion.
And when you first see the changes on the X-ray,
well, it hits home that we are in this now.
When you first see it, the first time you diagnose it,
it feels really significant, but I'm sure...
in the next coming weeks and months it's going to be a routine thing
to see these patients.
I do have a concern as well with the personal protective equipment.
Currently we're seeing these high-risk patients in surgical masks,
which aren't designed to stop things coming through the side.
And the policy isn't to see these patients with the proper fitted mask,
the one that I had fit tested last week.
That is a concern for me.
Our hospital is providing masks to the guideline,
but I think that guideline needs to change, personally.
I don't think we should be seeing high-risk patients
without those FFP3 masks.
I think many of my colleagues agree.
Anyway, I'm feeling good.
So I'm going to have some food, crack on with it.
I'll chat to you guys at the end.
OK, night shift over.
And it was definitely a step change.
It sort of felt like... I'd equate it to a bad horror movie
where you hear mumblings of a monster,
you kind of see tracks and you hear sort of strange sounds,
but then eventually you come face to face with it.
And that's really what we came face to face with today.