COVID ZERO: Follow guidelines or risk losing 'new freedoms'

On Saturday pubs and restaurants across the city are expected to open their doors to the public after months of closure due to the pandemic.

But hospital bosses are warning residents could be “losing those freedoms” if people are unable to act sensibly.

Derek Sandeman, chief medical officer at University Hospital Southampton, is urging people to get behind the hospital’s new COVID ZERO campaign.

Launched in an effort to stop further infections, it aims to encourage Southampton residents as well as the hospital trust’s 11,500 staff is “walk, wear, wash”.

Health experts at the hospital say people should follow government guidance and walking apart.

They should walk at a safe distance from other people, wear a mask where they can’t walk apart from others, and they should wash their hands as often as possible.

Now, Mr Sandeman is urging people to take heed more than ever as pubs and restaurants plan their reopening.

Speaking at the official launch of the campaign yesterday, he told the Daily Echo: “I completely understand and I am really grateful that we will be able to do things like that [go to pubs and restaurants].

“But all we have to do is walk apart where we can, wear a mask where we can’t, and wash our hands as frequently as we can.

“And if we do those we will control this infection so we don’t need to lose those freedoms.

“And when we talk about ‘flocking’, if we don’t take those things seriously then the infection will return and we will lose those freedoms.

“We don’t want to lose those freedoms, I don’t want that for our city, I don’t want that for Hampshire or the Isle of Wight.

“And truthfully, we can’t afford this as a country.”

• 'Second wave could overwhelm the NHS’: Campaign to wipe out covid

The campaign, backed by the Daily Echo, aims to speed up the return of hospital services while keeping staff and patients safe from the threat of coronavirus. According to hospital bosses, stopping further infections will mean staff who have been redeployed during the pandemic will be able to return to their regular roles.

Emergency department nurse Laszlo Penzes is currently on the recovery trail after a difficult battle against coronavirus.

Having been put on a ventilator, the 45-year-old was rushed, in an induced coma, from Southampton to London in a last-ditch bid to save his life.

He is now on the recovery trail and is backing the COVID ZERO campaign.

• 'We need to all be very cautious': Nurse struck down by covid backs hospital campaign

He said: “The reason why I think this campaign is because when people are seeing all of the figures and statistics in the news, it can be frightening.

“But if you don’t have someone in your close proximity - as a family member, as a friend, as a colleague - who might have gone through the hard way with this disease, you might not take the whole measures of preventing a second wave too seriously.”