A leading Gateshead GP has warned "Covid is definitely not going away" and spoken of the how vital it remains for patients to wear masks as under-pressure primary care services fight to cope with extreme demand and staff sickness due to the coronavirus.
Dr Paul Evans - chair of the Gateshead and South Tyneside Local Medical Committee (LMC) and a GP at the Bridges Medical Practice in Gateshead - told ChronicleLive that despite the Government's Living With Covid strategy, Covid was clearly still prevalent in the community.
"There's no change in what we're doing - because Covid is definitely not going away," he said. "Recently we have had a couple of runs of days where the surgery's been really short staffed because of staff having Covid or having family with it. It's not long ago that we were down to just having one doctor available in the practice. We had three off with either Covid or children with Covid at the same time.
