How COVID changed the UK: Daily podcast looks back at an unprecedented six months
The first episode of the two-part special looks back to the beginning of the pandemic.
Thursday 23 July 2020 17:45, UK
The past six months have changed the UK beyond recognition. In a two-part special of the Daily podcast, Sky News looks back at how coronavirus has transformed our lives.
On 3 March, the government published its COVID-19 action plan, warning that a highly infectious virus that emerged in China in December posed a threat to Britain too.
Just 20 days later the UK was put into lockdown, with "momentous decisions being made on a daily basis", political editor Beth Rigby recalls.
"You look back at what happened and I still have to pinch myself to believe it happened. It just seems so extraordinary now," she told the Daily podcast.
:: Listen to the Daily podcast on , , ,
Rowland Manthorpe, technology correspondent, added: "It has been really strange to report on this. There have been times when I have been on air and I have heard the words coming out of my mouth and I have been shocked."
Rigby recalls being on her break when she received a phone call saying the prime minister had gone into intensive care with coronavirus.
She said: "I was in St James' Park actually going for a little walk between the 7pm news and waiting to do the 10pm news and I got the message.
"I remember running back to College Green to go live and talk about it and my heart really was in my mouth at that point because that was really frightening.
"Was the prime minister going to have to go onto mechanical ventilation, and if he did what would that mean? And we were right to be frightened because as he himself said after - it was 50-50."
Specialist correspondent Lisa Holland was reporting on the crisis in care homes from the beginning of the outbreak.
She recalls speaking to Graham Greenaway, the owner of a home in Torquay, Devon.
He described the decision to send potentially infectious patients home from hospitals as "asking us to write a suicide note for people in care homes".
She said: "There was a dawning realisation that they were lower down in the food chain.
"I think it's really sad actually… looking back at it now that they thought they were going to be under this big umbrella, that they would be getting the PPE (personal protective equipment)… and in fact there were terrible stories."
Thomas Moore, science correspondent, said of the government's planning: "In the UK there was a belief that this wouldn't spread to Europe.
"Everything was set up for a flu pandemic not a coronavirus pandemic."
Ed Conway, economics editor, described the Bank of England and other financial institutions "stabbing in the dark" as they tried to protect the economy from complete collapse.
"We came close to that," he said.
How COVID changed the UK podcast, a two-part special of the Daily podcast, is hosted by Dermot Murnaghan with Beth Rigby, Rowland Manthorpe, Thomas Moore, Lisa Holland and Ed Conway.
The first episode is out now.
:: Listen to the Daily podcast on , , ,