Pandemic tales

I was aware of this flu like disease originating in Wuhan, China from the TV news in December 2019. I suspect like many others I did not think it would particularly affect my life and if I had thought about it, I think I probably thought this would be like SARS and similar threats and not be as bad as journalists were suggesting, how wrong I was! COVID-19 entered my work life in early February, many of our fourth year students go on elective to SE Asia and we had to make decisions about whether they could travel or not. All too quickly, it was deciding our returning students must quarantine before seeing patients.

The School (Figure 1) prepared to move teaching and assessment on line as lockdown approached. One of the biggest challenges was communication with the students, how to keep them in the picture when you did not know what the future held yourself.