I couldn’t attend last week’s Newham Voices hustings because COVID hit my family and I self-solated, but this gives me an opportunity to reinforce some important potentially life-saving advice that differs from current government guidelines and is also a bit of a plea to you all.

My background is that of an emergency medicine doctor working in A&E and I know from colleagues the pressures faced by staff currently on the frontline. The current rules also mean that vulnerable people are now at greater risk of getting ill from covid and many are essentially housebound while the government wants the rest of us to behave as if it’s gone away.

Within my household now three people have become unwell with COVID. The COVID inquiry into government handling will identify the woeful failures by this government in keeping the country safe and the lives lost to COVID. A quick scroll through Twitter will show young people saying their goodbyes who are then being intubated in ITU hoping they will wake. The virus has not gone away.

Please can I ask here that if you are exposed to COVID within your household that you do your best to isolate for a few days until the covid positive person is negative and you yourself are negative.

Some of the decisions made currently, and also during the earlier pandemic peaks, may have been contributed to by Dame Jenny Harries as then deputy chief medical officer who is now head of the UK Health Security Agency. Harries suggested masks were not a good thing and that World Health Organization advice on test and trace was meant for other counties and not the UK, and also advocated in favour of allowing mass gatherings like Cheltenham to continue in March 2020. Data shows a significant spike in the days and weeks following the festival.

The government’s handling of COVID and its dreadful handling of the NHS is why I’m standing for Mayor and as a Council candidate for Stratford Olympic Park. I know we only have a few days to go before the election this week. When I’m safe to be out campaigning for choice and debate within Newham Council it will be great to talk and get your thoughts. My stance on COVID is one of my key messages. Everything filters down from government to local areas.

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