areas but around southern eastern areas but heavy rain at times north. heavy winds, up to 60 mph in central and northern parts of the uk, 30 — a0 further south. losing humidity on sunday so less pressure for all.

hello this is bbc news. the headlines. a major easing of the coronavirus lockdown comes into effect in england, with pubs, restaurants, hotels, and cinemas all able to re—open. some hairdressers in england have been open since midnight — businesses will have to have new rules and procedures in place. a local lockdown comes into force in the city of leicester. hospitality businesses aren't allowed to open and social gatherings and overnight stays are banned. seven police officers have been

injured after they attempted to break up an illegal party in west london. president trump has launched a blistering attack on anti—racism demonstrators, accusing them of trying to erase america's history. now on bbc news, philippa thomas hears from people around the world about their extraordinary experiences during the pandemic and how covid—19 has changed their lives. welcome to coronavirus: your stories, a programme about how covid—19 is affecting the lives of people around the world. i'm philippa thomas, and this week we're looking at the lasting impact on medics on the frontline — the tiredness, even the trauma,

created by dealing with relentless crisis. later we'll hear from a spanish lung doctor who got covid—19, got sick, and carried on treating her patients from quarantine. what has that done to her? we begin with what it's like to be a first responder. when new york city became america's first virus epicentre, it staggered under the weight of infections and called in extra paramedics from outside, including melroy d'costa, from middletown, connecticut. so the moment i got the call, i was advised to pack as much as i possibly could and to expect anything under the sun. we were given very little information as to what to expect, because we just knew that the state of new york needed our help in any which way possible, and we were there to give it any way we possibly could. and when you drove into the city, when you reached manhattan,

what were your first impressions, melroy? nervous, in reality. once again, we didn't know what to expect. we were responding with hundreds of ambulances from all over the country. now, we were in a new city, in a new state, under a new system, working with people that we may never have met before, and we had to adapt very quickly to the system. did you even know your way around? no, honestly, no. i had been to new york a handful of times, but i wouldn't consider myself confident within the city of new york, navigating through all of the streets to the designated hospitals. and at that time, new york was the coronavirus epicentre. there were rising numbers of covid infections. you were being called out to a lot of situations where you suspect the virus may be present. so how did you have to deal with that? how were you equipped?

so the agencies we were working with had fully equipped us, to the best of their ability. and that included wearing masks, gowns, goggles, face shields, gloves — anything they could possibly provide us to help keep ourselves protected. that is very hot and heavy when you're racing around new york. absolutely, but at the end of the day, we better be protected from this coronavirus than, god forbid, be a patient and not be able to help the city and state of new york. melroy, tell us about the first few days, the first time when you had a patient and you had to get them into hospital, and you see what it's like inside hospitals in new york city. so the first few days were very hectic. once again, we were trying to learn and adapt to the new system. but the first time walking into a new york hospital, it was very surreal for me. because i had seen things on the news, on the media, i had read things in the newspaper.

but seeing it up close and personal, where the hospitals were overloaded with patients, and the nurses and the physicians and other ems personnel were running around, trying to do the best to their ability, and seeing a lot of patients with difficulty breathing, other complaints, some with breathing tubes, others getting breathing tubes — it made it very real. and to see the wide demographic of patients, sometimes i imagine what if that was me, and that it could be me at some point. it must be — i know you're used to this, this is yourjob. but it must be such a contrast coming from the vehicle into a building, where as you're telling it, you look down a corridor and it's full, it's noisy. i mean, how does it hit you? you know, i've seen full hospitals, with full rooms. but to see the hospitals to this

extent, much more than a lot of the hospitals could have handled, but they're still intaking the patients to the best of their ability, it is nerve racking. because there was nothing i have ever experienced in my six years of ems, nothing anybody i had ever talked to had experienced to this magnitude, and it was a very new experience for us, and a very frightening one at that. and at the end of the day, what did you do? how do you cope together? luckily enough, we were with teams. the agencies we were with, they would pair us up in sometimes teams of six or 12, and we were able to kind of come together while properly socially distancing, and share experiences or swap stories, orjust talk about everything else but what was going on — talk about sports or music, maybe reading, exercising, just trying to keep our mind off

of the work involved. and at the end of the day, it's something we kept in mind, but we couldn't fully involve ourselves in it, and keep that the only thought in our heads. we had to distract ourselves so we didn't become too overwhelmed with everything going on. i can understand that. in a sense, you need to protect yourselves when, if we're talking about a city at the peak of coronavirus infections, there was a lot of fear out there, and for some people there was panic, too. absolutely, and that went across not only the medical providers while doing theirjob, but some of the patients. and some of the patients were very fearful of potentially contracting this virus, and inhibiting them from going to the hospitals. and we had to advise them that, although the virus is very real and very much present within the city itself, it shouldn't inhibit anyone else from going to the hospital.

and that in itself was a task. a lot of us are fearful of certain situations we walk into, but we still walk into them, doing what we can, because that's what we're trained to do. melroy, you are two years into being a paramedic, i know you've got emt experience from before. did you feel, faced with what was happening in a city at the peak of coronavirus, i have enough experience to manage here? to be part of this awesome, awesome experience, just what happened, being away from home for over a month, being with providers that i may have met or may not have met, under a new city that i've only been to a handful of times and didn't really know much about — it was overwhelming, i'll be honest. it was very overwhelming, because everything was new but the medicine. the medicine — i tried to remember all my experiences from at home, and tried to bring them along

with me, and tried to adapt to things that we knew or different ways to treat these patients. so dealing with coronavirus and being in new york was prolonged for you. you spent a month on those emergency shifts, and now you're back in connecticut. has it stayed with you in any way? absolutely, the experiences have absolutely stayed with me. and i've tried to share some of my experiences and what i dealt with with some of my colleagues at home, just so they can understand what some of these patients present like, and how to manage them to the best of our ability. but obviously there are some things that i keep to myself, just because they're very close and personal to me, and have somewhat changed me. unfortunately one of our colleagues that was deployed, not from connecticut but from another state that went to new york, he ended up passing away. and at the beginning of this, nobody knew what to expect,

but we all expected to go home. and unfortunately, our colleague did not go home, and that hits you. you know, you try to go help, and do what you can, and you want to come home at the end of the day. who can you talk to, melroy? who can you open up to about the after—effects, when you've been through things that — i mean, there may be things that you can't even share with us, when you've seen such a lot in such a condensed period of time. who you can you talk to? luckily i do have some colleagues that were sent with me that i can speak to. i do have support staff. my current place of employment, that has been very great at helping us through this. i am also lucky enough to keep in contact with some of the colleagues from the other states that were in the teams with me, as well. but sometimes it's tough.

it's tough to remember some of the things we saw and some of the things we dealt with, and it's. .. it gets difficult at times. and more generally, given the dangers of trauma to frontline workers, like yourself and others, what would you say about that? because that seems to us to be such a big risk. there are a lot of different types of trauma, and medical providers, especially in emergency services, we run into a lot of scenes. you know, some are safer scenes than others, and we do see a lot of things. and i know in our region of the us, as i'm sure other parts of the us, mental health is becoming very, very big. and it's something we need to keep in the back of our mind, that we're not — we're not invincible. there are things that get to us. paramedic melroy d'costa, sharing his experience of the frontline and the fallout.

i'm philippa thomas, and you're watching coronavirus: your stories, a programme about how covid—i9 is changing lives around the world. next, one of the experts most exposed to the virus. eva polverino is a pulmonologist from the european respiratory society. she was working flat out at vall d'hebron hospital in barcelona to save her covid patients when she caught it herself, and kept on working from quarantine. she told me what it was like working at the peak of the crisis. first you accept the situation and then you react, and start dealing with problems immediately step by step. every day there was something new, a new problem to face. along with all the others, we were trying to find solutions and it was a great teamwork for the hospital.

everyone in the hospital was collaborating somehow. not only pulmonologists like me but any kind of doctor, nurse, any professional worker. so you are italian, hearing from italy, working in spain and you knew something bad was coming. could you describe to us what it was like going into those wards at that time? it was almost unbelievable because i have been working for many years in respiratory infections and in the past we had other threats like mers and sars and we did not expect this new viral infection to come to europe and not in this way. italy has a good healthcare system so it was difficult to accept what my friends and colleagues in italy were saying that people were dying. the mortality rate was higher than what we expected so we had to listen to them and realise the same thing, the same reality was coming to us in spain and in just a few days,

a week we had the same situation in spain. so the first days of covid, i went to my boss to ask for some contacts to help to find ventilators to send to italy and after a few days we needed those ventilators in our hospital so imagine it was a tremendous shock for everybody. all these new beds, new wards, icus became ten times bigger than it had been in terms of numbers of beds so everyone was involved. and for you from the start did you think about the fact you would have to shield your partner? because you work with the sickest people. yes. as we received the first patients, covid positive in the hospital i decided to go and confine myself. i told my husband that he will sleep

in one room and i will sleep in a different room and the same for the bathroom. you will use the kitchen and then i will use it. just one and we have to start thinking of the possibility that i could get sick at some time. it was about one month before i really got infected with covid—i9. so it was good because he never got infected. you were able to protect him and you were, essentially, alone, in a sense, for a month and then you got the virus. yes. i got it. yes. i started to feel feverish and i thought oh, my god. what else could it be? difficult. covid—i9 is everywhere. it was a shock — and you think only 5% of people with covid—i9 die

but you could be one of those people who could die, you know? you are human. notjust a doctor, you are a person and a patient at that time. i had to go to hospital because i was not good at all. i tried to stay at home but i needed some blood test and confirmation. i did not have any lung involvement but i have to say i had everything else that this virus could have. so i had to stay alone in that small room for another month, so lonely for two months. it is a lonely time especially when you are dealing with disease, with your own fears and the fears of everyone and trying to keep your family safe. so, eva, you are hit by covid—i9

and you felt very ill for weeks but you carry on working. what patients were you dealing with and how could you work? i usually deal with chronic patients and immuno deficient patients who usually receive intravenal serums on a monthly basis so i had to remind them to go to the hospital. nobody wanted to, so for those who had to receive a specific treatment, i had to insist that they go to hospital and get their treatment and for the others they were scared about the virus, they had a visit planned for that date and i was trying to do everything on the phone, explain the situation. i couldn't tell them that i was sick but i tried to do my work. you continued in your professional life as a doctor even while you feel sick and perhaps scared.

i had to. the main problem was to manage my energy because i like to sleep, wake up after a few hours and then a few hours on the phone and then i had to sleep again. so that help me somehow. i felt i was useful because it is difficult, all your colleagues are fighting with this infection and you feel useless so somehow i was trying to do my part of the job and it helped me. when you were first working at the hospital and decided you had to shield your family, what was that like? it was sad. it was difficult but i knew i had to do it because i did not want to pass the infection to anybody at home, any friend, anybody. it was necessary but it was hard because when you face such

a difficult situation, you need, more than ever, you know, your family at your side so it is difficult. i think we all decided, because many of my colleagues did the same, and we all decided naturally it was necessary but, of course it is difficult. but you do it, it is yourjob. you chose this job and you have to do it. so when you went into self isolation at home, what were you missing? physical contact with my husband, with my dog. a hug. eating together. watching tv together, just simple and things of life. sharing a good conversation with your friend but you are thinking of something else

that is not disease, you know? healthcare problems and patients, a normal life. did you let yourself cry? 0h, idid! and i am happy i did because i really needed it and i am sure almost all of my colleagues also cried because you need to do it. it is a release. you need it because the stress is incredible. you are working and thinking of the disease every day, all the time you are awake. i had to be on the phone 16 hours a day with patients, so the stress is hard because you feel sick and at least three times i was alone in my room and started to cry and then i felt much better.

do you see colleagues that you think are traumatised by what they are dealing with? i think most of us have some kind of trauma with this. there is a generalfeeling of frustration and it is difficult to manage the fact that you have to think of yourself, not only your patients but as a doctor you are constantly concentrating on patients. and it is difficult. but most of us have some psychological effect like frustration or tiredness or, whatever. sleeping difficulties or enjoyment, you know, simple things of life. and we will need some time. it was like being in war. you are fighting and after the war is finished you have to look at your body and think broken

and you have to look at yourself, you look at yourself in the mirror and you realise you are not exactly as you were before the war. it is not easy. and i think all of us, in spain there was a statistic saying that four of five health professional had problems relating to the covid situation, to covid—i9 and the situation we face. so all of us, we don't like to talk about it, let's avoid it, let's go on. what if there is a second wave? we don't know. and i must say possibly nobody knows. if somebody says i am sure it will be this way or this other way, they are lying.

the virus has surprised us in many ways, all the time. it is not possible. it is clear we now know how to manage the situation, confinement, lockdown, follow patients and their potential contacts so that we are more prepared than we were at the beginning. we know what the virus it can cause. what the virus of patients are. so we can also manage patients better. but a second wave, it is difficult to answer. that was pulmonologist eva polverino in barcelona, ending this programme on the lasting impact of the crisis on frontline workers. thank you forjoining us.

hello there. if you cast your minds back to last weekend, you'll remember we had an area of low pressure which brought some wet and rather windy weather to the british isles. this weekend looks even windier and unusually windy for the time of year, particularly into sunday, with a risk of widespread gales and all of us will see some rain at times as well. before we reach that very windy spell, it looks like it will be a breezy day for saturday. winds coming in from the west and south—west, driving a lot of very warm and humid air off the atlantic. going to be a rather cloudy and muggy day today, thickest of the cloud always across the western hills of england, wales and scotland, a bit of low cloud, some murk as well through the afternoon. across the east, bit of shelter could see a brightness, certainly east of the high ground, some sunshine which will make it feel quite warm, around 20 celsius. mid to high teens further north. the wind picks up this evening and overnight and turns gale force across the north west, heavy rain sweeps its

way westwards, bouts of rain also sweeping across england and wales. initially, it will be quite a warm and muggy night but fresh air will start to move in as the winds begin to pick up. sunday looks very unsettled, it is a very deep area of low pressure forjuly. lots of isobars on its southern flank, indicating strong winds and this is the cold front that should be spreading across the uk. eventually clearing the south—east early on sunday, then it is a bright day, plenty of sunshine for england and wales, particularly further east, lots of showers into the north and west of the country, some heavy scotland, northern ireland, northern england, and it is here, swathes of very strong winds, 50 to 60 mph gusts which could cause disruption and damage in places. further south, 30 to a0 miles an hour, so very blustery indeed forjuly, it will feel more like autumn. slightly fresh feel to the air, temperatures generally around the mid to high teens. as we head on into next week, that deep low pushes off into scandinavia, we start to see high—pressure nosing in from south—west, that will gradually settle things down. monday and tuesday,

will be on the cool side with north—westerly winds but there should be fewer showers around. that said, monday is still a blustery day, not as windy a sunday and the wind is still driving in a few showers across central and eastern parts of the country but it will be drier further south and west, closer to that area of high pressure. it will feel on the cool side, temperatures of 17 to 20 degrees.

this is bbc news with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. a major easing of the coronavirus lockdown comes into effect in england — with pubs, restaurants, hotels, and cinemas all able to re—open. it is going to be a bit touch and go figuring out how we are going to make everything as safe as possible, but i am pretty reassured by the systems we have got in place. some hairdressers in england have been open since midnight — businesses will have to have new rules and procedures in place. a local lockdown comes into force in the city of leicester. hospitality businesses aren't allowed to open and social gatherings and overnight stays are banned. president trump, speaking at an event celebrating independence day at mount rushmore, launches a blistering attack