My daughter and I bear cost of poor Covid response

These were the words | found myself saying in the early hours of 30 March 2020, exactly a week after the UK was put into lockdown. Last week, the UK Covid-l9 Inquiry found the response by all four UK governments to the pandemic was a case of “too little, too late”. I can't begin to tell you how incredibly sobering it was to see this in black and white.

- Emma Charlesworth, The Independent

Thad little doubt that much would be written about the lessons that could be learnt, the actions of those in government, and the lives that could have been saved had there been a different response. Numbers and statistics would be shared. But for me, these findings weren't political, They were personal.

Because behind every statistic is a life. A family. A story. My husband, Stuart “Charlie” Charlesworth, was 45 when | made that 999 call, After he was tended to by paramedics, he walked down the stairsto the waiting ambulance and was rushed to hospital. Just over two hours later, | learnt over the phone that he had been sedated, ventilated and taken to the intensive care unit. And when I say intensive care unit, it was, in fact, an additional unit that had been created in the hospital's theatres because the actual unit was full of other patients.