“The first victims of the coronavirus pandemic in London were the cleaners.” A Pole living in London tells about his experiences

He survived the first and the beginning of the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic in its epicenter – in London, where he has lived for 10 years. Now he has been in Poland for several days. Roch Głowacki, a lawyer working for an American corporation, praises the British for their concern for the economy and for the policy of consulting restrictions with the public. How did he survive the lockdown in the UK, what surprised him and what solutions he lacks in his homeland?

1. The panic that broke out in the British Isles in the spring was short-lived, but people, like everywhere else, bought their staple food
2. The British government has tried to implement a number of programs to support the fragile economy of the pandemic
3. The British are not interested in conspiracy theories, but the so-called policing by consent is effective
4. In the UK, as in Poland, the most painful thing is to limit contacts with family and friends
5. You can find more such stories on the TvoiLokony home page

Monika Zieleniewska, Medonet: How do you assess the first wave of the pandemic in London from the perspective of eight months? What surprised you the most?

Roch Głowacki: Probably problems with the supply of basic supplies. I’ve seen what panic can do to people. The goods disappeared from the supermarkets in no time, and the staff did not keep up with putting out a new one. At first, I didn’t panic, I shopped as needed. However, when I went to fill the refrigerator after two weeks, it turned out that the shelves were empty. There were no staples such as toilet paper, rice or pasta. Suddenly it occurred to me that my food supply was running out. This is one of my worst experiences at the start of a pandemic. In this way, I managed to borrow a van with my friends, got up at 5 am and parked in front of the supermarket by 6 am. Besides, we were not the only ones who came up with such an idea, because there was already a large crowd on the spot.

People were just afraid?

In the spring, many people outside London thought that everyone in the capital was dying. I will tell you such a story, my friend went to visit her boyfriend’s family. When she announced she was returning to London, his parents refused to let her go; they believed that there was the epicenter of the pandemic. At the time, there was a feeling that London was a dangerous place. Many people started working remotely and the city became depopulated. A landscape like after an apocalypse. On the one hand, it was a bit of a relief because the crowds were gone, but on the other hand, I felt like I was walking around an empty movie set.

Any of your friends contracted the coronavirus?

Colleague. It cut him off for a week, and of course he lost his sense of smell. It was even before the talk that loss of smell was one of the symptoms. He’s a healthy young man under 30, he was mildly infected, but took a week off because he felt terribly tired.

In March, I had the impression that the British government did not see the danger.

Foreign media presented Great Britain as a country taking up the fight against the pandemic too late. After a few months, I also see it that way. The government reacted a bit too slowly at first, but very quickly took steps to provide support to the closed economy. This is not only my opinion, but also many friends from all walks of life, be it entrepreneurs, lawyers or full-time people who were afraid for their jobs. Citizens were impressed by the efficient activities of the Chancellor of the Treasury.

So the people responsible for economic policy rose to the occasion?

There have been initiatives that could also be useful in Poland. During the summer holidays, the government implemented programs aimed at stimulating the economy, such as Eat out to help out. This program offered customers a 50 percent discount on restaurant meals. The idea was to encourage people to go out to eat on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, because then there were discounts. I haven’t seen anything like it in other countries.

It’s about keeping jobs.

The first weeks were strange and difficult, nobody knew anything and interestingly the cleaners were one of the first professional groups to fall victim to the pandemic. Many compatriots work in this profession in London. At the beginning of the pandemic, the Polish City Club in which I operate organized a charity auction to raise funds for them. We identified five families in need and supported them with the amount of approx. pounds.

What do you think about the health care organization?

Certainly, decisions were made faster than in Poland to create field hospitals. I have been in my home country for two weeks and I can see that it was only a few days ago that plans were started to transform various facilities into hospitals. In London and other big cities, temporary hospitals were being built very quickly. In April and May, many conference facilities were converted into them, which, by the way, did not fill up during the first wave of the pandemic.

And the tests, are the British willing to test themselves?

There weren’t many tests done in spring, but now things are changing. The number of people tested is increasing, maybe not as fast as the government would like, but it is growing. The BBC said that by October 10, 20 million tests had already been performed in the UK, and there were times when about 300 tests were carried out. daily. I can see that more and more tests are also performed in Poland, but I have not noticed that any information about the ratio of the number of tests performed to the number of infected was published somewhere.

What other British remedies for a pandemic would you transplant into Polish soil?

I haven’t heard of any Polish infection tracking app, so maybe a Track and Trace app. I recently got an SMS saying I can download it. It is delayed because it was supposed to start in spring, first in May, then in June, but the government hesitated whether to create it in a partnership with the private sector or on its own. There were also consultations about what data should be collected and whether they should be collected on the user’s phone or sent to a central office. In the end, the first version was unsuccessful and now a new revised one has arrived. The use of the application is voluntary, at the moment, if I am not mistaken, it is used by 4 million users.

And do you see differences in how the pandemic is dealt with here and in the UK?

In my opinion, the panic in Poland is now greater than the one I observed in London or the whole of Great Britain at the time when it was worst there. British society is more relaxed, people are less afraid. This, too, is partly due to the way the pandemic is presented in the media.

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Is there no one denying the coronavirus, are there no conspiracy theories?

We do not hear as many voices denying the danger as in Poland. But I remember that 5G signal poles were destroyed in the spring. Rumor has it that this technology causes COVID. However, the voices of covid skeptics did not get through to the mainstream.

Since everyone understands the danger, they also understand and obey the restrictions. Or so?

They keep social distance and wear masks, and the restrictions are more restrictive at the moment. There, the authorities profess the so-called policing by consent. It is not a police state, it does not impose any rules, everything is done with social consent. At the moment, the restrictions are de facto stricter than in Poland. There are 3 zones and you cannot meet in apartments in the second one. In London, even during the holidays, it was possible to go out to a restaurant or to live with someone else, but in a group of no more than 6 people. So in Poland, the red zone is less restrictive. In general, it is not bad with respecting the restrictions, although at the end of the summer fewer people wore masks in stores. I mean small shops where you stop by for a short time. Now that Manchester was about to be included in the zone with the strictest restrictions, the mayor objected. He negotiated with the government. Manchester is an example that there may be gaps in this discipline, because if everything is closed, you cannot meet, then there is less consent for far-reaching restrictions.

How do the British cope when the psyche does not hold up?

They try not to lose their sense of humor. At the end of spring, when an attempt was made to loosen the restrictions and kick start the economy, a cleaner was allowed to be hired. Cleaning was an exception, because apart from the person who would do it, no one was allowed to be received. It was joked that you had to hire your parents, pay them to clean the apartment, and hold a family reunion at the same time.

So contacts with family, friends and acquaintances are necessary everywhere.

I have a physician friend who works in central London, and in the midst of this pandemic, he would come to me, sit in the opposite corner of the room wearing a mask and drink beer or cider. This was how he reacted. Back then, only the so-called key workers, i.e. medical staff and some officials. This doctor friend of mine was visiting me on Friday nights to have any normal social contacts. He spent an hour with me and came home. We called these visits freedom Friday, but it was actually his freedom Friday because I was locked all the time.

What restrictions were the most painful for you?

When you work from home, it would be nice to be closer to the larger green areas. London parks, at the height of the pandemic, were full of people. Everyone who was not working at the moment came there. At one point, it was also not possible to travel outside of London. It is true that this recipe had some not very clear exceptions, such as e.g. you can go to exercise or come if you walk longer than you drive. So, after a 5-hour journey, you would have to walk for 6 hours. I live in central London and when the parks filled up I missed a quiet place to relax.

See also:

1. Record of coronavirus infections in the United States
2. The British have found a way to predict the risk of severe disease and death from COVID-19
3. The s are preparing a super vaccine. It is supposed to protect against flu and COVID-19 at the same time
4. How To Survive The Flu Season In A Pandemic? We have some expert advice

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