In the first wave, back in Spring 2020, “we were living from day to day”, says Dr Alison Pittard. Wards were squeezed, expertise was stretched, and they had to learn about a new disease, even as that disease threatened to break them.
But morale was high. “There was a feeling, ‘This is what we were trained to do, let’s get on and do it’,” she said. In the second wave last winter, they knew so much more, but it was a slog.
“We were being asked to do it all a second time, and the feeling was, ‘I’m not sure I can do this again’,” says Pittard, dean of the Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine and a Consultant Anaesthetist in South Yorkshire.
And in the
