An author turned junior doctor’s account of the chaos at work and anguish at home as Covid-19 arrived in the UK is vital, cathartic reading
I was working as a GP when a new respiratory illness began crossing the globe. So much rewriting of history has happened since that it’s easy to forget how anarchic things felt in March 2020. Devastating images from China and Italy were followed by a deafening silence from the British government. Junior doctors were left to implore the government to lock down on social media and TV. In our clinic, left to our own devices, we mocked up an infection control room, saw patients in cars, improvised PPE, and rotated shifts in clinic and on the phone to reduce infection.
Roopa Farooki’s brilliant, raging stream of consciousness relates 40 days in her life as a junior doctor. An award-winning author, she retrained as a doctor and was in her first year working at an English seaside hospital when SARS-CoV-2 arrived here.
