WITH the nation into a second week of lockdown and cases of Covid-19 climbing, the Local Democracy Reporting Service spoke to Teesside GP Dr Paul Williams about the illness, its spread and how the NHS front line was holding up.

TEN deaths have been confirmed due to covid-19 on Teesside – and, sadly, that total is set to rise.

NHS workers are fighting day and night to save the lives of those suffering the most – as well as those with other life-threatening conditions.

Former Stockton South MP Dr Paul Williams is one of those.

He spoke to the Local Democracy Reporting Service on Monday afternoon in the middle of an 8am until midnight shift.

What are the less obvious symptoms of covid-19?

Warnings of a persistent cough, fever and trouble breathing have been common for covid-19.

But milder symptoms, such as a loss of smell and taste, have also been touted as possible signs of the virus in recent days.

Dr Williams said eight out of ten people had mild symptoms when it came to covid-19 – but two out of ten would have “much more severe symptoms”.

“Most of the milder symptoms will include cough, fever and tightness in the chest – or breathlessness – but there are a number of other symptoms which have been reported as well,” he added.

“This includes a sore throat, a loss of taste or smell – people can get mild symptoms.

“Hopefully, it won’t be too long before people will be able to test – and it’s a glaring gap in our response at the moment that we don’t have community testing available.

“These are very non-specific symptoms – so there are many people out there who are going to need to isolate as though they have coronavirus at the moment, because they cannot test whether they have or have not got it.”

The Government says there is now capacity to carry out 11,000 tests a day – with the hope of carrying out 25,000 tests a day by mid-April.

How ill do I have to be before I ring 111?

Stoicism can sometimes be a dangerous trait when it comes to our health.

Dr Williams said when to call or seek help was “the key question”.

He added: “If you go to 111 online, it gives you an idea about that – https://111.nhs.uk/covid-19

“They’ve developed it to be quite comprehensive.

“The answer is not to call 111, unless you don’t have access to the internet, but if you do, you should go to NHS 111 online.

“That will take you through a series of questions and give you the answers depending on how old you are, and how long you’ve had the symptoms for.

“The other part of that question is “when should I call 999?”

“That’s probably the most important question – and you should do that if you’re struggling to breathe.

“Of the people that get really ill with this, it’s breathing problems that kill people.

“It can cause respiratory failure or sepsis – so if you are struggling to breathe then you should be calling 999.

“We will save the most lives by getting those struggling to breathe to hospital.

“We need to be measuring things like the amount of oxygen in the blood, their pulse and blood pressure.

“111 is the go to place online because 111 telephone services are struggling at the moment.”

Busting the sputum myth

Misinformation has spread on some social media sites in recent days – with some bogus advice on holding your breath or drinking water to stop the virus.

Dr Williams said he’d had to dismiss one such myth.

He added: “There is one I’ve had to dispel – and that is if people who think that if they are coughing up sputum, they cannot have coronavirus.

“The most common presentation of covid-19 is with a dry cough but a fifth of people (20 per cent) who have coronavirus, are coughing up sputum – so you can still have coronavirus if you’re coughing up sputum – whether that is coloured or clear.

“We’re learning more about this illness all the time.

“It can present in different people in different ways and as soon as we have testing available, it would be really helpful.”

Can we stroke our pets?

Dr Williams said: “That is fine. Pets are a massive source of comfort to people.

“One of the big things I’m noticing is how difficult this is becoming for people.

“People are becoming more isolated from their friends and family from spending time at home – and pets can offer massive solace to people, either going out and walking the dog or having a pet at home with them.

“So you don’t need to keep your pet to one side – and, as far as we know, this virus isn’t spread in any way through pets.”

How important is our mental health?

Dr Williams said: “I’ve had some calls from people this morning telling me they aren’t coping. They can’t sleep or they’re worried. People say they can’t go to work so it’s really important.

“The key bit of advice for everyone is try and keep yourself mentally well – that means doing a bit of exercise or activity every day, making sure you get enough sleep, and eat well.

“Just because you’re at home, make sure you’re not binging on foods high in fats, salt or sugar – try and take is as an opportunity to catch up on sleep with plenty of water and spend a bit of time doing things you enjoy every day.”

Takeaways – and door handles

Dr Williams added: “This virus can be left on surfaces but most of the people delivering takeaways are schooled in good hygiene so I would say the risks are minimal.

“Most people delivering takeaways will now be wearing gloves – so even though, in theory, it could be transmitted, in practice we’re probably safe with takeaways.

“The things I’m being cautious about in the GP surgery are door handles.

“It’s more likely to be left on a door handle so we’re making sure we wipe all of our surfaces and handles.

“I’d encourage people to use them (takeaways) – especially if you can get them from a local business as we all have to think about how we keep our local firms going during this crisis.”

A warning to colleagues

NHS trusts are gearing up for rising demand in the coming fortnight.

Dr Williams said he was now wearing protective equipment for every person he came into contact with, but he believed there were lessons to be learned from elsewhere in Europe.

He added: “One of the things we’ve learned from Italy – and we’ve been doing this as well – is dividing hospitals into “red areas” where they’ve either got covid-19, or have had contact with people with covid-19, and green areas where there is no known contact.

“In the red areas, people are wearing PPE (personal protective equipment) all the time and transmission between patients and staff in those areas was very low – because people were taking precautions.

“But the transmission rates in Italy were actually much higher in the green areas – because staff were perhaps transmitting to each other or people were being a bit less cautious about using PPE.

“The change I’ve made now is I’m using PPE for every single person because so many people are asymptomatic.

“Every contact I’m having, I’m reducing my risk – and when I’m interacting with other staff, unless I absolutely have to, I’m staying two metres away.

“My message to health service staff is you’re not immune to this. I know they will read this.

“You are key workers and it could spread really quickly within one workplace and take that workplace completely out of action. Then you’re no use to anybody.

“I’d encourage health workers to minimise socialising and keep their distance.

“I’ve been in workplaces where I’m seeing nurses, doctors and admin staff all sitting in a tea room together and chatting.

“They’re putting themselves at risk but also putting their service at risk by doing that.”

Testing times

The Government says it is ramping up capacity to test health and social care workers with a target of 10,000 tests a day.

And more than 900 tests were carried out on front-line NHS staff over the weekend.

But Dr Williams offered a flat “no” when asked whether he knew any staff who’d been tested.

He added: “There are lots of people off at the moment.

“The reason why I was working over the weekend was because somebody else could not do their shift as they were off, either with symptoms, or because their family members had symptoms and and it’s been a real struggle.

“I’ve heard on the news that tests are coming through.

“It ought to be health workers first – not because we’re more deserving but because we need to get to work to keep the health service running.”

Last week, the Government said it was scaling up its testing regime.

However, the UK is currently behind countries like Italy, Germany and South Korea when it comes to how many tests are being carried out per million people.

The Government has purchased about 3.5m antibody tests designed to show whether you recently had coronavirus, even if you had no symptoms.

Separate tests to gauge the reliability of these antibody tests are ongoing.

Dr Williams could not understand why some countries had been able to carry out hundreds of thousands of tests when the UK hadn’t.

“If we really want to contain this, we need to know who has got this and who hasn’t,” he added.

“At the moment, we’ve got blunt instruments – which are non-specific symptoms. There is lots of uncertainty and I think that uncertainty is leading to a lot of worry.

“If we had the tests we’d be able to tell people they had it and to behave in a certain way, or that they hadn’t. There are just a lot of unknowns.

“I think it’s hard for the public and patients and hard for the health service as well.

“More than anything, we need mass rolling out as testing as quickly as possible.”

The future

Prospects of life returning to normal any time soon look bleak.

The former Labour MP believed the “lockdown” would go on for much longer than two weeks.

Dr Williams added: “My understanding of the epidemiology of this is maybe restrictions will be relaxed a little bit in a month or two.

“But if cases rise again, they may well be tightened again – so we may well have several different waves of this throughout the year.

“I don’t think this is going to go away until we have a vaccine – and that may well be a year off.

“This is not just another fortnight of isolation and things going back to normal.

“I think we’re going to be making changes we’ll be staying with for quite a long time.”

Dr Williams is the Labour candidate for the Cleveland Police and Crime Commissioner elections postponed until 2021. He was due to face Conservative Steve Turner in May before the coronavirus pandemic.