A conflict journalist on the unique challenges of reporting on COVID in Holmfirth, England

Judy Woodruff:

With all COVID-19 restrictions lifted today in the United Kingdom, despite being in the midst of a major surge of infections, we examine how life has been lived in one small English town.

For the last 16 months, conflict journalist Will Wintercross has been quarantined there, like so many of us unable to travel.

In partnership with the Global Health Reporting Center, he sent us this look at the pandemic's effect from the town of Holmfirth, nestled in the hills and valleys of Northwest England.

Will Wintercross:

As a foreign correspondent, I have spent my career covering everything from wars in the Middle East to Ebola outbreaks in Africa.

But in March 2020, as COVID-19 took hold in Britain, I went back to my home county of West Yorkshire as the country went into its first lockdown. Little did I know that I'd be covering this story for the next year-and-a-half.

Found approximately 30 miles east of Manchester, the area is dominated by Victorian mills, row houses, sheep farms and beautifully bleak moorland.

In the beginning, residents of my village and indeed up and down the valley sprung into action, forming support groups to help the most vulnerable, as young and old adapted to a new normal of life under lockdown.

Dr. Angela Nall operates a local care facility. We spoke last March.

Dr. Angela Nall:

I run a 75-bed hospice. We don't have any face shields. And the masks that we have been given so far are just the moisture masks. Luckily, my husband has got some fantastic skills, making skills with 3-D printers.

Richard Nall:

Angela's staff, of course, needed the masks. And here I am with all these machines, and there I could. I could make them.

Will Wintercross:

Emergency physician Jayanth Savanth was like so many in medicine, bewildered, worried, and quickly exhausted.

Dr. Jayanth Savanth:

Everything is new for us.

We have come up to 30 to 40 cases per day, including about three to four deaths. Yes, it is quite a risky time at the moment. But as we are medical people, patients come first, so we are dealing with it.

Will Wintercross:

Just as Dr. Savanth said this was a new situation for him, it was for me as well. Ordinarily, I report the stories of people in far-flung places.

But, here, I wasn't just reporting from my home country, but my hometown, where there are no front lines, yet front lines are everywhere, and the enemy is invisible.

In my work, there is a real risk of death or injury. However, being at home, I could have been the agent transmitting the virus to my own parents, with whom I was staying for seven weeks. This in some ways forced me to be more careful than I have been in Syria or the Congo.

I was also acutely aware that, unlike every other story, I couldn't simply get on a plane and leave it all behind. And it allowed me to empathize with those I had interviewed elsewhere in the world like never before.

Keely Edge, a schoolteacher in my village, talked of her worries for herself and her two young daughters.

Keely Edge:

We don't know whether we're safe or whether we're not safe. We don't know if we have had it or we haven't had it.

Student:

I won't be able to see people that I usually see on a regular basis.

Will Wintercross:

Doris Earnshaw was a working shepherdess until last year, but, at 87 years old, has finally decided to retire. She has lived in the Holme Valley her whole life. She remembers World War II here.

Doris Earnshaw:

Well, this, this, I feel, is more scary, because we don't know where it is, when it's going to happen, whereas, the war, we just carried on.

Will Wintercross:

Not unlike her neighbor, Doris Earnshaw, Dora Green is also a retired shepherdess, as well as being a pub landlady. She still lives on the farm with her son.

Dora Green:

We're fighting bugs now. We were fighting bombs then. You know, we're all in this together.

Will Wintercross:

Over a year on, we went into our third lockdown, meaning I was not able to cover the pandemic beyond this town or stories like the global fallout from George Floyd's murder or the recent war in Gaza, as I was still in West Yorkshire, covering the pandemic at home.

The pandemic has already claimed the lives of 129,000 people in the U.K., and the National Health Service has been stretched to breaking point.

Dr. Jayanth Savanth:

My biggest worry was, when is it going to end? A few of the nurses were even crying during their shifts. Actually, even I was breaking apart. But I think the vaccine came like a big weapon and stopped all this.

Will Wintercross:

And survivors like Georgina Parkinson, like many Britons, gives much credit to the National Health Service.

Georgina Parkinson:

And they put me on full oxygen. I honestly didn't think that I'd come home because of how I felt.

Doris Earnshaw:

Well, it's been very quiet. I miss my friends, but I'm waiting for my second injection.

Dora Green:

I have sort of learned how to do Zoom. It's a bit of a strange way of doing it, though, because I'm never sure when I can speak and when I can't.

(LAUGHTER)

Will Wintercross:

Local artists residents were keen to show their appreciation for the National Health Service.

Dr. Jayanth Savanth:

Since we have managed this pandemic, I think we can go through any kind of situation next time. I have that confidence now.

Will Wintercross:

As of today, July 19, or Freedom Day, as some are calling it, all lockdown restrictions have been lifted here in England.

However, cases of the Delta variant, which has also been dubbed the Johnson variant after the British prime minister, are rising exponentially, making up 95 percent of infections. The government here has been accused of sending mixed messages about dangers still posed by coronavirus.

And the SAGE committee, which is similar to the CDC, has said COVID deaths will likely rise to 200 a day, as hospitalizations will reach at least 1,000 per day following the easing of restrictions.

Like the rest of the country, here in the valley people are divided on this decision of opening up.

Dr. Angela Nall:

It makes me feel really quite anxious, because the different variants are spreading, particularly the Delta variant, spreading very, very quickly.

Will Wintercross:

As a medical professional, what would your advice be to Boris Johnson?

Dr. Angela Nall:

If I dared to…

(LAUGHTER)

Dr. Angela Nall:

… advice a prime minister, I'd say slow it right back down. He's being premature. I understand the pressure he's under politically and economically. I really do.

As a hospice, we are — we have very vulnerable people. There are many in the staff group that are really quite vulnerable as well. People have worked very bravely through this last 18 months. They have worked tirelessly. They have been incredibly selfless, incredibly brave.

And I feel like it's a massive slap in the face for everybody that we're now saying, oh, it's OK. You can open up. We can't open up.

Dora Green:

My son and daughter-in-law came over today, brought lunch over for me. And it was the first time I had actually seen them for such a long time.

I have really, really enjoyed it. And what a good day to do it in. It's given me a real lift today. And I'm looking forward and hoping that the world is going to change, I know it is. It's bound to change.

Lovely view. What could be better? I'm very lucky. Might even go to the football match. You never know.

Will Wintercross:

For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Will Wintercross in West Yorkshire, England.