Coronavirus: Belfast healthcare workers beg people to stay home

The Belfast Respiratory Team issues a stark message in hopes of curtailing the spread of coronavirus.

The Belfast Health and Social Care Trust has received praise for the video, which was posted to social media on March 22 and has since been viewed more than 3 million times.

In the video, 20 healthcare workers stand in the atrium of Belfast’s Mater Hospital with the recommended six feet between them. Members of the Belfast Trust’s respiratory team take turns urging people to stay home and limit the spread of the deadly virus.

Now is the time to stay at home. Our respiratory team have a clear message- stay at home to save lives #stayathome #fightback #COVID19 #jointhefightback pic.twitter.com/8fLhug8xTC
— Belfast Trust (@BelfastTrust) March 22, 2020

“We are now at a crucial time, this is not a rehearsal, you will only have one chance at this,” says a respiratory consultant named Angela.

“Stay at home.”

The public service announcement is one of several social media posts shared by various organizations and celebrities as part of the #fightback campaign urging people to stay home. There have been concerns that people in Ireland are ignoring social distancing advice.

Chief Medical Officer Dr Michael McBride told BBC Radio Ulster: “People should not be trivializing this disease – while it is for most a mild to moderate illness, for some it’s not.”

“There’s no point any of us looking back in two weeks and thinking ‘I wish we’d done more.’

“We need to take steps now and over the next couple of weeks to protect our health service, so that our brothers, sisters, mums, dads, grannies and grandfathers get the care they need from the health service and to protect our healthcare workers.”