Farley is the respiratory ward in the place where most of the Kobe patients could be found.

Over the past weeks, cases here have been ticking up.

We've seen that gradual sort of increase of positive patients of test results coming back positive, and that's what's happened.

Do you have a sense of when it might pique, we think with the data that has been shared, possibly by the end of this week.

For a couple of months this summer, there were no covert cases at all in this hospital.

But now it's back.

Patients are passing away again.

Andi, even the indomitable matron here could feel the disappointment in the hospital.

You know, we haven't had the usual lit up that we would in the summer.

We do normally have a little bit of a low.

We haven't had that.

So we know that we're gearing up for winter on.

Yes, we've got covert, but we've got all the usual winter precious, a swell, so that just makes people that little bit more tired.

But this second peak is a relative high, and now it seems quite a bit lower than the first.

So they are reaching.

What the modeling tells them will be the second peak now.

But it's quite different on this ward toe what we saw in April.

For a start, they only got half the number of beds allocated to covert patients.

Aunt Thankfully, the numbers dying from the disease air also much lower.

So whereas 55 people died with covert in this hospital during the first wave, the total so far in the second is seven.

Many here fear, though, that Justus the second wave ebbs away.

The government's relax ation of restrictions over Christmas could set them back.

I do worry about the cost to the community, to the health service of five days of people getting together.

I mean, my understanding is that some of the high risk activities of households getting together indoors and and having, you know, different households and often different generations getting together for several days over Christmas.

My understanding is that presents a serious risk to people's health.

And yes, I am concerned about that.

This'll hospital often echoes to music as part of a program that began before the pandemic but continues even alfresco, to soothe staff and patients up to levels in the cardiac unit.

We filmed the resumption of day surgery in June, shut down for months.

During the first wave, doctors were left counting the cost of heart patients lost while the priority was co vid.

The difficulty we've had, of course, is people still have the fear of co beard.

There were still some patients who say, Actually, I still wanna wait for another six months before this is all over, and then I'll come and have my investigations and test done.

But of course, the flip side of that is that we have seen increased morbidity and mortality in patients who have been waiting.

Andi.

They're presented with heart failure and heart attacks on.

In some cases, patients have died, so it zill a major problem.

The first lock down created a backlog, and it remains even though they're working through the second.

So how long the wait the patients now expect?

I suspect we're probably looking at 6 to 9 months, so there's still a long way off eso if you present needing some a standard investigation or test, Um we're still talking several several weeks or months before we can get to you unless you present within emergency.

So it's we're nowhere near out of the woods yet.

They've managed to keep pretty much everything open here during the second wave, and they're proud of that achievement.

Like every other hospital, they had to shut down much of what they were doing during the spring.

But the backlog from then remains, and that's got to be cleared.

Add to that concerns that easing up over Christmas might even generate a third wave.

Hidden away from the hospital is a secret store of PP laid in for the second wave.

There's literally tons of it, from gowns to gloves gelt advisors.

They had to plan for the worst, but it's already clear.

Much won't be needed in this second wave.

Soon they'll emerged to tear to restrictions.

So what's the second English national lock down?

A blunt instrument in an area where mercifully this hospital hasn't come close to being stretched?

The difficulty with regional lockdowns, I sense is it becomes much more difficult to deliver a message consistently and in a way that people will engage with, uh to me.

That's the number of the problem.

Up on Level three, they've stepped up star flu jabs.

85% have had them on the target is 90%.

There's a reason for the urgency they want a least a week between flu and co vid vaccines on this work hints at just how imminent the co vid jabs.

Maybe the hospital wants to be ready by Tuesday and start administering one of the new vaccines as soon as it's certified.

They hope before next week is out.

I would absolutely have it.

I'd absolutely have to.

You have to trust that is going to be safe.

It will be effective.

Andi, It seems like it's a way out of out of cov cov.

It's gonna be around.

It is not gonna not going to suddenly go away.

So we've got to find a way to vaccinate.

Sometimes we do with flu.

If we fast forward to the period where we have a successful vaccine that that protects people and stops the virus being transmitted and can be delivered to a significant proportion of the population, then now that takes us into a very different place from where we are now?

Definitely.

Yeah.

This winter promises all manner of stresses and strains on the health service.