‘Covid-19 victims are suffering without tests’

Daniel Cowan, Labour councillor for St Laurence Ward, has been self-isolating after experiencing symptoms that indicate the coronavirus.

He was told by his GP that while he may have the virus, there is no capacity for him to be tested.

Mr Cowan has told of how the process has potentially left many people like him suffering with symptoms that are not strong enough to warrant hospital care but leave them in a lot of pain.

He said: “I’m on day 25 now and it’s getting pretty tiresome. The last time I spoke to a GP was at some point last week and they said that they were pretty certain that’s what I had contracted but could not order a test as I was not critical.

"It’s the typical symptoms of a high temperature, which went on for ten days without coming down.

“Then it did go down, but came back up again pretty quickly. It’s been a case of 24 to 36 hours of feeling better and then 24 to 36 hours of feeling worse again, but I am told that is quite normal.

“The persistent cough has been going on for some time, and it could potentially go on for weeks after I recover. I experienced a lot of these symptoms and also early last week I had breathlessness.

“However, I won’t be able to get tested unless I get to a position where I’m in need of hospital treatment.

“There’s a lot of people who are in-between the mild cases and the major cases, and they’re the ones that are falling through the cracks.

“They are in a lot of pain but won’t be tested because they are not critical, so it’s a difficult situation to be in.”

Mr Cowan said he is still trying to perform his duties as a councillor, but believes there could be “many months” of more disruption. He added: “Unfortunately I am not having meetings, everything I am doing is being done remotely. It’s largely unaffected. I’m trying to do everything I can to do casework and keep residents updated with as much as I can. I think we’re going to see a lot of changes to how we live.”