Latest news with #LoveandLoss:ThePandemic5YearsOn
Gulf Today
25-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Gulf Today
An emotionally shattering re-examination of Covid-19
Phil Harrison, The Independent For those of us lucky enough not to have lost anyone dear, the 12 months between March 2020 and March 2021 now have the quality of a peculiar dream. If we think of the period at all, it's often in the context of alternating boredom and strangeness; breadmaking and homeschooling; bingeing Tiger King and wondering if 4pm is too early for having something. Can it possibly have been five years already since Boris Johnson stood at his podium, told us he'd been shaking hands with Covid patients, and, shortly afterwards, announced the first lockdown? Catey Sexton, the director of BBC One's affecting — and at times shattering — documentary Love and Loss: The Pandemic 5 Years On, is very aware of this. 'It feels like we're in a rush to forget and move on,' she says. But for Sexton and tens of thousands of others, it's not so easy. She lost her mother during the first Covid wave. Her mother was one of the thousands of people marooned in care homes, behind Matt Hancock's famed 'protective ring'. 'All I could do was wave through the window,' Sexton recalls. 'Mum couldn't understand why I was outside'. Later in the film, she expands on her grief. 'Mum spent her whole life looking after everyone else', she says. 'So my greatest sadness is that I couldn't do that for her at the end'. To her credit, and to the film's benefit, Sexton largely either keeps her own experience out of the story she's telling or intertwines it with the grief of the other bereaved people she interviews. Her subjects know she understands and the result is an essential act of communal witness and remembrance. The film's narrative is essentially linear, a simple decision that gives the film a gently simmering polemical power. This is, rightly, never allowed to overwhelm the personal stories of loss - but equally correctly, never quite dissipates either. The British government got the pandemic wrong in instalments and they are subtly but persuasively laid out here. 'I don't want heads on spikes,' says one woman, acknowledging the extreme difficulty of the task that faced the government. All the same, to watch this film is to be reminded of how badly we were failed by our leaders during that time. And, for so many of us, how much that failure cost. At around the same time Boris Johnson was addressing the nation, NHS workers were bracing themselves. They were preparing to make sacrifices — and over 2,000 of them would make the greatest sacrifice of all. We hear from the family of Areema Nasreen, who caught Covid in the hospital in which she worked — which was also the hospital in which she'd given birth to her children. And the family of Rebecca Regan, who slept in a caravan so she didn't bring the virus into her family's home, and who wasn't able to be vaccinated because she was pregnant. After a while, Clap for Carers started to feel stagey and co-opted, but it began, we're reminded here, as something both spontaneous and almost painfully sincere. The weekly applause is one of the many moments in the film that catches you off guard; it reminds us of the many surreal moments that came to seem normal during the pandemic. But always, the memories are filtered through loss and grief. Rishi Sunak's absurd Eat Out to Help Out initiative is treated with the scorn it deserves. But in truth, as the year went on, no one was handling themselves well. Inexorably, the nation's physical health crisis became a mental health crisis too. Jenny McCann recalls her brother John as a man who loved life. He was obsessively healthy, enjoyed bodybuilding and was careful what he ate. As 2020 went on, he became increasingly susceptible to conspiracy theories. Isolation fed his suspicions and he refused the vaccine. In 2021, the virus killed him. 'I'm no longer cross with my brother for believing the conspiracy theories', McCann says. 'I'm cross with the peddlers of the disinformation.'
Telegraph
24-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Love and Loss: the Pandemic 5 Years On, review: emotional tribute to the 220,000 forgotten Covid victims
When we talk about the pandemic now, it is more often than not to bemoan the lasting effects of lockdown. The ' ghost children ' who disappeared from education, the missed cancer diagnoses, the employees who got so used to working from home that they won't come back to the office. There is a tendency to look back at Covid as an over-exaggerated threat policed by over-zealous social distancing rules. It's almost easy to forget that so many people died. 'It's like it never existed,' says one bereaved mother in Love and Loss: The Pandemic 5 Years On (BBC One). 'Only those who lost somebody still talk about it.' This emotional film from director Catey Sexton was simple but effective. It reminded us of those deaths by inviting the bereaved to talk about the relatives they lost. It was intensely personal for Sexton too. Her mother contracted the virus and died in a care home, while Matt Hancock – to what we must hope is his eternal shame – claimed to have thrown a 'protective ring' around them. On her last visit, all Sexton could do was stand outside and wave to her mother through the window. Sexton chose her case studies to represent a broad range of ages. Some were elderly had underlying health conditions but were still enjoying life before Covid struck. Others appeared fit and healthy. Areema was a 36-year-old nurse; Chloe was a 21-year-old care-home worker. Becky was pregnant with her fourth child. Rudi was a bus driver looking forward to retirement. Bob fell ill after treating the family to meals out during Rishi Sunak's Eat Out to Help Out scheme. 'He was only 53 and he was healthy,' said his widow. 'It seemed inconceivable that this little bug could kill Bob.' In every case, Sexton opened with the question: 'What were they like?' It was important, for the relatives and also for the viewers, to remind us that behind the statistics lie human stories. Rudi loved snooker and Only Fools and Horses. Areema was the first in her family to get a degree. Bob collected Hawaiian shirts. Sexton visited the Covid memorial wall opposite Parliament, and I glimpsed a message written on one of the hearts: 'Freya May Mathison, forever sweet sixteen.' It prompted me to look up Freya May on the memorial wall website, where relatives can add photographs and tributes. She is there, with a beaming smile, beside a message from Mummy and Daddy and her younger siblings. There is anguish behind every Covid death statistic.
The Independent
24-03-2025
- Health
- The Independent
Love and Loss: The Pandemic Five Years On is an emotionally shattering re-examination of Covid
For those of us lucky enough not to have lost anyone dear, the 12 months between March 2020 and March 2021 now have the quality of a peculiar dream. If we think of the period at all, it's often in the context of alternating boredom and strangeness; breadmaking and homeschooling; bingeing Tiger King and wondering if 4pm is too early for a glass of wine. Can it possibly have been five years already since Boris Johnson stood at his podium, told us he'd been shaking hands with Covid patients, and, shortly afterwards, announced the first lockdown? Catey Sexton, the director of BBC One's affecting – and at times shattering – documentary Love and Loss: The Pandemic 5 Years On, is very aware of this. 'It feels like we're in a rush to forget and move on,' she says. But for Sexton and tens of thousands of others, it's not so easy. She lost her mother during the first Covid wave. Her mother was one of the thousands of people marooned in care homes, behind Matt Hancock's famed 'protective ring'. 'All I could do was wave through the window,' Sexton recalls. 'Mum couldn't understand why I was outside'. Later in the film, she expands on her grief. 'Mum spent her whole life looking after everyone else', she says. 'So my greatest sadness is that I couldn't do that for her at the end'. To her credit, and to the film's benefit, Sexton largely either keeps her own experience out of the story she's telling or intertwines it with the grief of the other bereaved people she interviews. Her subjects know she understands and the result is an essential act of communal witness and remembrance. The film's narrative is essentially linear, a simple decision that gives the film a gently simmering polemical power. This is, rightly, never allowed to overwhelm the personal stories of loss – but equally correctly, never quite dissipates either. The British government got the pandemic wrong in instalments and they are subtly but persuasively laid out here. 'I don't want heads on spikes,' says one woman, acknowledging the extreme difficulty of the task that faced the government. All the same, to watch this film is to be reminded of how badly we were failed by our leaders during that time. And, for so many of us, how much that failure cost. At around the same time Boris Johnson was addressing the nation, NHS workers were bracing themselves. They were preparing to make sacrifices – and over 2,000 of them would make the greatest sacrifice of all. We hear from the family of Areema Nasreen, who caught Covid in the hospital in which she worked – which was also the hospital in which she'd given birth to her children. And the family of Rebecca Regan, who slept in a caravan so she didn't bring the virus into her family's home, and who wasn't able to be vaccinated because she was pregnant. After a while, Clap for Carers started to feel stagey and co-opted, but it began, we're reminded here, as something both spontaneous and almost painfully sincere. The weekly applause is one of the many moments in the film that catches you off guard; it reminds us of the many surreal moments that came to seem normal during the pandemic. But always, the memories are filtered through loss and grief. Rishi Sunak's absurd Eat Out to Help Out initiative is treated with the scorn it deserves. But in truth, as the year went on, no one was handling themselves well. Inexorably, the nation's physical health crisis became a mental health crisis too. Jenny McCann recalls her brother John as a man who loved life. He was obsessively healthy, enjoyed bodybuilding and was careful what he ate. As 2020 went on, he became increasingly susceptible to conspiracy theories. Isolation fed his suspicions and he refused the vaccine. In 2021, the virus killed him. 'I'm no longer cross with my brother for believing the conspiracy theories', McCann says. 'I'm cross with the peddlers of the disinformation.' This film makes it clear that Covid has never really ended for many people. Some have long Covid. Others are still shielding. But for the bereaved, there's nothing but sadness – and frequently anger – at the unnecessary loss of beloved family members. Sexton offers a nuanced perspective on the aftermath. There's a bench overlooking the sea, dedicated to Rebecca Regan. In some cases, there's a sense of newly activated political engagement as a result of the government's failure. And there's even a new drag performer: Ellis channelled the loss of his grandfather Berrice into Queera Lynn – part drag queen, part tribute to his grandad's favourite singer. 'It's very easy for these people to slip away and become numbers', says Ellis. 'But actually, they were real and they meant something'. Catey Sexton has made a moving, important and timely film; it does all of them justice.
The Guardian
24-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Love and Loss: The Pandemic 5 Years On review – is it time to wake up from this collective amnesia?
'Remember the pandemic?' In 2025, it's something you might say after spotting a person wearing a face mask on the street, or being temporarily stunned by the sudden recollection of the 2-metre rule, or people hosing down their weekly shop. Of course, few adults will have forgotten about a global pandemic that officially ended only two years ago – not least because, for many, Covid-19 infections still cause significant health issues. But, generally speaking, the world has moved on, and you can see why it might seem that the nation is experiencing collective amnesia about an event that resulted in the highest death toll since the second world war. For some, this feels like a betrayal. Families who lost loved ones to the virus are not just incapable of putting the pandemic out of their minds, they are determined not to. As Covid fades from our lives and our lexicon, they worry that the victims are at risk of being forgotten too. This feature-length programme from documentary-maker Catey Sexton is an attempt to ensure that doesn't happen. Love and Loss: The Pandemic 5 Years On is dedicated to remembering people who died from Covid, including Sexton's mother, who died in a care home. We hear about nurses, carers, bus drivers, young people, elderly people, those with disabilities, fathers and mothers. The film gives bereaved families the chance to pay tribute to their late loved ones, not with overblown praise but by talking about their hobbies, their values and their quirks, and sometimes even gently ribbing them (for their dad dancing or love of a good moan). Sexton's subjects are from every corner of the UK and a variety of backgrounds. Those who died were adults of all ages, and they caught the virus in different ways: some as key workers, some in care homes, some when lockdown was lifted. The point is to show that Covid was, to a certain extent, indiscriminate, but it is also to humanise the statistics we were fed during the height of the pandemic, when most of us were numbed – perhaps necessarily – to the acute individual suffering they represented. Each portrait is full of love, and predictably heartbreaking. Yet they are also insightful. The more we hear about the nature of these deaths, the more we can understand the shades of grief that are particular to the pandemic. Relatives are not only traumatised, but left suspended in a state of disbelief – some due to being denied a funeral service, others because they could not be at their loved one's side when they died. Bound up with the enduring shock is a sense of guilt and regret – misplaced, of course, but so understandable. Some of this has to do with listening to medical advice: when the parents of 21-year-old Chloe were told by paramedics not to worry about her condition because young people weren't dying of the virus at that time, they felt reassured. She died the same day. When Femi caught the virus, his GP told him to stay at home. He died on the sofa. When his daughter talks about his death, she addresses him directly: 'I'm really sorry, Dad, I really wish that we did more.' The idea that anyone blames themselves for these tragedies – especially considering that this was a time when our freedoms were almost completely curtailed – is extraordinarily sad. Blaming the state might be a more rational option. The final stretch of the programme briefly covers the continuing inquiry into the country's handling of the pandemic. Although detailing the specific mistakes and compromises made by the government is largely outside this documentary's remit, it does explain how important it is for the bereaved to dredge meaning from the mess. Sexton admits that her search for answers about why so many died in care homes is a coping mechanism. For others, trying to protect the UK from another botched response to a future pandemic gives them purpose amid such senseless loss. Occasionally, this programme recounts the pandemic narrative in an over simplistic way, but Sexton is not aiming to provide a rigorous history. Instead, she has focused on capturing an emotional reality. For most of us, the pandemic was like a bad dream from which we have woken. But not for these families. At one point, a bereaved father says he wishes he could go back in time and warn people about Covid. It is magical thinking about a surreal period in our history that, as this programme evocatively shows, has left so many permanent scars. Love and Loss: The Pandemic 5 Years On aired on BBC One and is on iPlayer now
BBC News
24-03-2025
- Health
- BBC News
Leamington man's fight for answers over father's Covid death
A man who lost his father during the coronavirus pandemic said he was still campaigning for Akinnola's father Femi, who worked with adults living with learning disabilities, died with Covid-19 in April 2020 at the age of Akinnola, from Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, said he was still campaigning for answers on behalf of the Covid-19 bereaved families as a public inquiry continues. "Five years feels like a long time but the pain is still very present", he features in the documentary, Love and Loss: The Pandemic 5 Years On, which airs on BBC One on Monday at 20:00 GMT. Femi was a regular gym-goer, with no underlying health conditions, and Mr Akinnola said he thought racial inequalities may have put him at greater to BBC CWR, he said: "It's important that we don't forget those people that we've lost and that's something that I hope this documentary will do, give people the space to share and experience each other's sorrow."It's the largest loss of life since World War Two and it's important that we take the time and space to commemorate and remember those we've lost." 'Nothing can bring him back' The UK recorded more than 220,000 Covid-related deaths, and the aim of the documentary is to retell the story of the pandemic through the eyes of 12 people who lost loved ones – including the film's director, Catey Sexton."People sacrificed themselves, there were people who were fighting to try and keep us all healthy and safe and they paid the ultimate price," Mr Akinnola said."It's so important that we remember those people and try to live up to the legacy they have set of caring for your fellow man."It's so crucial that we learn from this disaster and find answers, there's nothing I can do to bring my father back but if finding out what went wrong for him means that someone else doesn't have to be in the same place then I'll spend every day I have trying to make sure that we get those answers, not just for my closure but for the sake of those who come after us."The documentary will be available to watch on BBC iPlayer. Follow BBC Coventry & Warwickshire on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.
