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On this weekend exactly a year ago a 50-year-old woman from Hubei province in China arrived in the UK to visit her son studying in York. Within days both were in Castle Hill hospital in Cottingham with subsequent tests confirming the UK’s first identified cases of Covid-19.
The woman and her partner flew into the UK on Jan 23. Initially asymptomatic and with no past medical history, she fell ill on Jan 26. Two days later, her 23-year-old son also fell ill with the same feverish symptoms and a dry cough.
The son had returned to the U.K. from Hubei on Jan 6. After falling ill, he contacted the NHS 111 service and both he and his mother were assessed as being at potential risk of having Covid-19. From York they were taken by ambulance to Castle Hill.
At the region’s infectious disease unit they were isolated, assessed and were subject to diagnostic testing. They were managed in separate negative pressure cubicles with anterooms with nursing and medical staff at the unit in full PPE.
Such was the urgency, one member of the team left a party he was attending when he hit the call. PCR testing of nasal swabs taken from the two patients confirmed Covid-19.
As a result, the NHS Airborne High Consequence Infectious Disease Unit network was activated and the decision was made to transfer the patients by a Hazardous Area Response Team ambulance to a high level isolation unit in Newcastle in the early hours of Jan 31.
The story has a happy ending for the mother and son. She started returning negative C-19 tests within two days of admission, his first negative test came back after five days. By then, they had none of their original symptoms. They had only suffered mild infections.
The husband had remained asymptomatic throughout their 14-day incubation period and remained isolated himself as a precaution. He tested negative throughout.
Twelve month on, the world is a very different place but the experience of the nursing and medical team at Castle Hill created a perfect template for what has followed and some ended up leading research which helped develop the Oxford AstraZenica vaccine.
Having such people on our doorstep is something we all should be grateful for. They probably could not have imagined that a year later they would be treating 230 Covid-positive patients a day at HRI and Castle Hill. Thanks to every one of them.