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So can you just start by saying your name and what your position is?

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So I'm Tracy Musto, and I'm the university biological safety officer.

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Thanks very much. And we'll get onto what that means in a minute. But first of all, without telling me your whole life story,

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could you just talk me through how you first got interested in science in general

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and what the main steps in your career with to get yourself to where you are now?

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I don't know. I think I've always been interested in science pulling things apart,

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finding out how they work by race, things like that, wildlife nature, just science in general.

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So I did all the sciences at level in the days when they were PO levels and A-levels and then went on to do biochemistry at Sheffield University.

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And then when I left Sheffield, I got a job as a research technician at Birmingham University.

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Stayed there for a few years, then went into industry to work at a private company that was on Keele University's campus and stayed

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there for about seven years and then came down to Oxford as the assistant biological safety officer.

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So what was it that appealed to you about about that job and how different was it going to be from what you were doing before?

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Well, I think I was I was never going to be, you know, a lead researcher and nothing like that.

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I wasn't driven in that way. And so I was just looking at ways to use science degree and the knowledge and the research.

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So still keeping in contact with research, but moving away from research.

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And I'd always been involved in the safety aspect both at Birmingham and in the private company.

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So it was sort of that natural step to just move away from science completely into health and safety.

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Mm hmm. And so what it talking specifically about biological safety, what does that encompass in in terms of an institution like university?

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Oh, gosh, the institution is this university.

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It's massive. It's all encompassing.

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So because it covers wild type organisms, it covers genetic modification of organisms.

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And we've got specified animal pathogens. We've got things that are of interest to terrorism.

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So the list goes on and on disposal of it.

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So is this are you only dealing with organisms that researchers have chosen to deal with,

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or are you also dealing with organisms that happen to come onto the estate some way or another?

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No, I do it purely with the research side of things.

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Things like Legionella, for example, they find in the water systems that's not covered by my remit.

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That's that's somebody else's remit. Right. Right.

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Yeah. And what does a normal day look like?

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I mean, let's not before we get the day before a normal day, it's generally I review a lot of risk assessments.

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I answer a lot of emails about people asking questions, querying what they need to find in advice, guidance, like to get out into the departments,

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to go meet researchers, to talk through their work,

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meet with the because we have a system where we have local bso's biological safety officers in departments.

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So I have a lot of dealings with them providing the support that they need to make sure

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that in the local areas that everyone's compliant with the rules and regulations.

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So it's it's a very mixed bag of what I do from a day to day basis.

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And you never have to actually go into a lab yourself. And I don't do research anymore.

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No science? No. No. Or even any kind of testing?

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No. I do it occasionally and then did. When I first left, it was very much I missed the the science and going in there and get my hands dirty.

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But yeah, nowadays I think I might not be quite so useful in a lab.

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Things have changed in 20 years and again still before we get to COVID, but it'll become relevant as well.

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To what extent does the university make its own rules, and to what extent is it having to follow guidance from national health and safety bodies?

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Well, we follow all the various legislation that is out there.

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There are lots of supporting documents to go with the legislation.

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So there are lots of codes of practice that we can follow for for various aspects of health and safety, not just biological.

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So. We don't make any of it up. We we do follow the guidance that's out there.

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We follow a lot of what other institutions do.

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So I have lots of contacts with various other university biological safety officers,

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so we can talk between each other and say, how do you do these things?

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And and and compare and contrast?

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Because we we do all do things slightly differently, but it's all within the boundaries of compliance.

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Then you can make sample of a particularly challenging case that came up again before we're going to get to COVID in a challenging case.

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Um, no, not really.

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I mean, the most challenging things we've had, uh,

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complying with the security requirements that were for certain pathogens that we hold are very specific security requirements,

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and that can be difficult to retrofit into a department.

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So when they're being built, that's okay. But some of our buildings are 20, 30, 4000 years old.

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And that's when it gets tricky to to retrofit.

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And but yeah, I don't think we've had anything particularly more challenging than that.

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So let's let's finally get to COVID.

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Can you remember how you first became aware of it and then how long it was before

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you realised this was actually going to have a major impact on your work?

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I can remember because it was my first day in this role as the full university because I,

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my predecessor, retired and I acted up into the role at the start of 2020.

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Ah so he, he, he got that perfect didn't they.

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Really. So retirement just beforehand.

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So it was the first day in and I have an email from the gen with a risk assessment

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for their new vaccine against this virus that is circulating in China.

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And I don't watch the news. And so then I had to go, Oh, let me have a look on the BBC website what virus is circulating in China?

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So that was it. Yeah. So it was the first day back in January when the China started their vaccine production.

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I'm looking into that. So that was when that happened.

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And you know, for the first few weeks, you know, keeping an eye on it going, yeah, it's just like a cold, this isn't it?

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And then then when more information started coming out, you were like, Oh my God, there's no shutting that stable door.

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This is gone and this is worldwide and this is not going to be stopped.

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So yeah, by February it was just mental and yeah, you knew what was coming and it was only a matter of time before it all kicked off,

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which is quite interesting because of course we've gone through the pandemics of flu,

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which didn't turn out to be the pandemic that everyone was worrying about.

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So I think perhaps there was a little complacency going on in certain parts of society where they just said,

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oh, yes, they said this all before and it didn't amount to anything.

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And yeah, they still did. So it was a matter of the first, it was the gender,

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but it was then very quick because medical science very quickly went from just the gender who were in their usual way, as they do.

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They they produce these vaccines against lots of different pathogens, all using the same sort of system.

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It's just. Sorry, this is get. I'm just trying to get clear exactly what your where your role is.

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So. Were you trying to make sure that the researchers themselves were safe?

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Is that so? That's how it starts. Yes. Yes.

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So my role is more about looking at making sure what they do keeps them safe and people around them safe and the environment safe.

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So we have various different levels. So it was very much more looking at that.

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So you you look at what they're producing within the vaccine and again,

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like I say, the the views, the backbone of the vaccine for so many of the trials.

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So there was a lot of evidence on that. It was just the change of the the antigen for COVID rather than for all the other ones they've looked at.

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So it's quite easy to assess their risk assessment.

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And, and you go forward and then of course, there are different stages of that process.

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I don't get involved much in the they're going to stick it in people as the vaccine side of things.

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But I do get involved in that because I also sit on the Trust GM Committee.

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So all our clinical trials go through the University Hospital Trust and I sit on the committee as well.

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So I do see and I get to see what all the clinicians have to say about things as well.

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So it's quite interesting seeing that things so say so.

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Yes. So it went from the general and then as we spiralled there were there are other people looking at producing vaccines as well,

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different types of vaccines using the different methods, different ways doing it.

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And then I started to get the queries about the samples from patients and how they're going to handle the samples.

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And all that time we were trying to work out where so, so pathogens go into groups.

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So we have low risk ones as a good one and then we have high risk ones that has a group full.

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And so Ebola, for example, would be in for HIV in three influenza generalising too.

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So you got that spectrum. So we had to sit there and go, Well, how would you put COVID?

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Unfortunately, because we've had cycles of measures beforehand.

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We followed what size mass was,

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and the agency also then started producing the guidance to say that it was a has a group three organism and that's once that came out,

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that was where we knew we were going down the right lines. So to handle samples with has a group three organism in them you need a containment

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level three lab and we're fortunate we have quite a few containment level three labs.

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So we were working with the medics on how we're going to handle the samples until the guidance came out from Patchy as it was at the time,

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it's been renamed to Public Health England that yes, it's our Public Health England.

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Yes, yes. And they produced a set of guidance on how to handle samples as well.

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So once that comes out, then you followed the guidance there and it's quite helpful.

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I've interviewed both William James and Becky Moore. Oh, yes. They both specifically mentioned how very helpful you've been.

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Well, what what what are they? They are one of the people who've got it.

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Containment level three. Yes. So what needed sorting out?

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You know, this is so typical.

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So William lesson I like William he was the first of the researchers to come forward and say we want to work with the actual virus.

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So we we saw that there was lots of steps.

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So we started off with getting the permissions from the HCC because we have to contact the Health and Safety

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Executive and do notifications to handle pathogens of containment level three and has got three and above.

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So we had to already notify the samples from the COVID patients and so we originally started off with that at KD time.

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So which is Centre for Clinical Vaccinology?

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Tropical medicine. Kid I get there and then we're next up at in the.

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So we originally got they got to see all three.

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So we originally started with them being able to handle the samples from patients.

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Then once we got that permission, we worked on getting the permissions for the other locations that we then did,

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and then we'd literally just done that when William went right to move the virus.

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So the samples, although they might be infected, explain this, B, they might not necessarily have cold virus and they might just have bits of virus.

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Yeah. Yeah. So, so at the time and again, there's hindsight and there's what was going on at the time.

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At the time we didn't know that. So what we were having to say was, well, until we know for sure, we have to say that it's a SEAL three.

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That's it. And as it turned out, I mean, William did do some work to look at blood samples and to show that they weren't infectious.

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But I think it was ten samples that they used and statistics.

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Yeah. And all those sorts of things, whether ten statistically valuable or not,

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I think nowadays is a lot more evidence that says the blood isn't particularly highly infectious.

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Obviously respiratory tract stuff is much more highly infectious.

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So we've got different samples that require very different handling.

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But yet William wanted to work with the virus, which is again different notification.

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And also for William, most of the work in his cell three has been bloodborne pathogens.

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So it's the HIV aids and bees and things like that.

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So it was very much a well, you're going from a bloodborne pathogen to a pathogen that's aerosol and they are very different.

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So while you say that both sail through the wet route of exposure is very different.

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And so we had to go through all their paperwork, rewrite their code of practice, work on their how they handle the samples.

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Exactly. And so we we were very fortunate.

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The Health and Safety Executive was prepared to run a short online training course for people.

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So we managed to get, I think it was about 15 people trained just in all the way you would handle these samples.

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So that was quite useful. And we also were very lucky in that we have a TB group which is an aerosolized pathogen, be it bacteria rather than virus.

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And they were very kind and started doing some hands on training on how they handled their TB.

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And so we will train people to work as if they were working with TB.

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So that was really useful.

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And so yeah, after a lot of hard work from Willy, from Becky and rewriting documents and going through them all and checking the facility was okay.

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We finally submitted and got permission to work on it at the pathologist and sounds quite short when you think of it that.

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But it wasn't. It was an awful lot of paperwork that really needed to be written and MHC must have been very stretched.

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Did they take on a lot of more people? Not as far as I'm aware, but yes, they were very stretched.

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But again, I suppose if you think about everyone being pretty much in lockdown,

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maybe they weren't being having as much coming their way from other areas so they could focus and they were very helpful.

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I contacted them quite a lot just to check things and ask questions about where we going.

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And they approved our notifications much quicker than the standard time frame that they have because again,

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they know their work into a pandemic situation and that allowing the research to get going as soon as possible helps everyone in the long run.

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Um, so yeah. So that was William. And then literally as we got William's done all the other cell threes wanted to work with it as well.

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So then we had to do the same process. But fortunately what we did do is we took documents from William and Becky and we basically used.

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That was a set model and we took them to the other facilities and just tweaked the documents so that they it meant

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that there was a consistency across all our threes and it meant there was less paperwork for people to write.

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So we got the approvals from the other places quite a lot quicker.

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And again, they were all sort of trained following Becky and William in the sail through there.

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And then they went back to their facilities and trained up people in their facilities.

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So it was it was quite a big effort by everyone involved.

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So what other with other clubs that weren't actually working on live virus but still needed your advice.

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Yeah. So we had. So we had lots of people who were working at detecting how to detect the virus.

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So we were having to talk to them about using inactivated virus and how you inactivate virus and all those sorts of things.

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And you have to validate that it will be inactivated.

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Which was quite tricky because some of these were before we got permission to work with the virus.

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So you can't you can't do the validation some without the permissions.

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And so we were having to get validations done elsewhere by people who'd already got

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permissions in place to be able to check that we would get in using inactivated virus.

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And some of them were using just bits of virus.

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So again, you can genetically modified other things so that they were just looking at individual proteins or a couple of proteins.

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So you've got the structural biology group who would have been looking under the microscopes,

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the and microscopes in which bits which bits joined to each other, which is quite fascinating.

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And they do that. So we had that and we had the groups that were sequencing.

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So again, you would get samples in and they would be trying to get the RNA and the DNA and then sequencing and see.

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And again, we had to make sure that they were inactivated. So it was going all through the inactivation,

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whether he was appropriate or whether some of the chemicals that they used in

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the process would inactivate and validate and all of those sorts of things.

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So it was a yeah, it wasn't just wasn't simple.

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And how long did this extra level of work go on and can you remember it went on for well over a year because.

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Yeah, well, do you think about oh yeah, we got the original permissions for certain things,

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but then they would still be coming back saying, Well, we want to do another process.

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Can you check the paperwork? Have we thought of everything?

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And so I've been going through more and more documents than I can ever remember just to guide them and sort of say,

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Well, yes, have you thought about this? Can you do that?

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You need to do various things. So it went on and on.

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And then then we had the challenge trial, which is another one that that really did take an awful lot of work with, talking with the HSC.

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Tell me about the challenge trial. I don't know if you remember.

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Oh, yes.

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But the fact that it happened is public knowledge. I think the fact that it happened is public knowledge.

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So. So, yes. When they approached about deliberately infecting people to see what their immune responses were.

198
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And I think Imperial was doing a similar study on vaccinated people and challenging them with virus.

199
00:22:55,050 --> 00:23:07,980
And I just basically sat there for a while and yes, obviously deliberately infecting someone is completely the opposite of what we would normally do.

200
00:23:09,450 --> 00:23:16,529
And so that was very much a long discussion with the Health and Safety Executive.

201
00:23:16,530 --> 00:23:24,240
And then we had to talk to the Advisory Committee for Dangerous Pathogens,

202
00:23:24,600 --> 00:23:35,250
who are a very knowledgeable committee made up of medics and all sorts of high ranking people who were much more knowledgeable about these things,

203
00:23:36,450 --> 00:23:39,689
about how exactly what what control measures.

204
00:23:39,690 --> 00:23:41,270
Because what what you've got there.

205
00:23:41,930 --> 00:23:54,320
You need to protect the staff from exposure, but you're deliberately exposing a person and how you go about doing those two things.

206
00:23:54,530 --> 00:23:58,650
But it's not unprecedented, is it, because they've been challenged? Malaria, for example?

207
00:23:58,730 --> 00:24:01,730
Yes. So we've done malaria challenge trials.

208
00:24:01,730 --> 00:24:08,000
We've done salmonella challenge trials. And all around the world they've done lots of different challenge trials.

209
00:24:08,000 --> 00:24:22,610
So, no, it's not something unusual, but I guess to to use something that nobody really had because this was still only six months after lockdown.

210
00:24:22,730 --> 00:24:28,040
So a lot of unknowns. There's still a lot of unknowns about it.

211
00:24:28,940 --> 00:24:34,400
And yeah. And how you would participate.

212
00:24:35,240 --> 00:24:40,630
But equally, you've got that whole argument is that person over there is walking up and down the streets.

213
00:24:40,640 --> 00:24:46,430
Got it. But we've got to handle that person who we've deliberately infected in a different way.

214
00:24:47,990 --> 00:24:54,680
So there was quite a lot of toing and froing before we got permissions for that moment to go ahead.

215
00:24:56,510 --> 00:25:02,420
And that really was quite interesting because that was so far out of my knowledge scope,

216
00:25:03,650 --> 00:25:08,180
like I said, because it's counter to what I would normally be telling people.

217
00:25:09,260 --> 00:25:16,460
So, yeah, it's it was interesting and difficult, but the people doing the trial are lovely,

218
00:25:16,550 --> 00:25:26,720
so and so it's always helpful when it feels more like a, you know, a team effort than just somebody saying it will be done.

219
00:25:27,260 --> 00:25:31,940
And, yes, that was a question I was actually I want to ask that earlier, that it comes in perfectly well here.

220
00:25:32,930 --> 00:25:36,160
How? How cooperative?

221
00:25:36,730 --> 00:25:45,309
I mean, do you find that in general, people are sympathetic to your brief and you have to do what you have to do,

222
00:25:45,310 --> 00:25:57,880
which might feel restrictive to them? I think on a whole, yes, because I think most people that we deal with understand we're not there to stop it.

223
00:25:58,420 --> 00:26:08,470
We're there to facilitate it. It's just we have to facilitate it in a certain manner, and we have to make sure that we comply with the law.

224
00:26:09,160 --> 00:26:17,770
And usually it's more time delays, which is always a bit upsetting to a researcher, is when you start saying,

225
00:26:17,770 --> 00:26:25,090
well, you know, we need all this paperwork in place and then we need it approved by your local safety committees.

226
00:26:25,390 --> 00:26:34,720
And then it needs to go to the agency and they might have questions and it goes on and on and on before they can finally get to do it.

227
00:26:35,530 --> 00:26:42,370
And obviously, in situations like this, I think there was a push to get things done.

228
00:26:42,370 --> 00:26:48,730
But I think they were they were also very much aware that there were so many unknowns and

229
00:26:48,760 --> 00:26:54,700
that we were all just trying to make sure that they didn't want their staff infected either.

230
00:26:54,700 --> 00:26:58,600
So, you know, making sure everything was done in the correct manner.

231
00:26:58,930 --> 00:27:01,840
Yeah, I think nearly all of them were on board.

232
00:27:02,110 --> 00:27:10,840
So which is really nice and helpful because I didn't I didn't need to fight as what was as the pandemic going on.

233
00:27:11,710 --> 00:27:15,940
So what we see in like a kind of officious bureaucrat.

234
00:27:16,730 --> 00:27:26,680
No, but yeah. So it is sometimes challenging because sometimes they they don't see the reasons why.

235
00:27:28,150 --> 00:27:36,310
And we do especially have an issue with because we have the hospital sites and

236
00:27:36,400 --> 00:27:42,490
medics will handle samples in a different manner because they're diagnostics.

237
00:27:42,940 --> 00:27:49,690
So you may handle something in a way because you don't know it's infected.

238
00:27:49,690 --> 00:27:54,430
It's highly likely, but the diagnostic tests are to tell you whether it is or isn't.

239
00:27:54,700 --> 00:28:04,270
Whereas we tend to have things that we know are and therefore they're not diagnostic samples because we're not testing them to give a diagnosis.

240
00:28:04,420 --> 00:28:13,390
We've got these samples because they are infected and we want to mess around with them and do research.

241
00:28:13,600 --> 00:28:17,200
And you must have people who are both in clinical and research. Yes.

242
00:28:17,200 --> 00:28:21,400
And they know that they can get something done quickly as a clinician. Yes. The long time with the research.

243
00:28:21,500 --> 00:28:27,700
Yes, I see. Yes, I can see that that that's where the the challenges usually lie.

244
00:28:28,540 --> 00:28:40,540
And yeah, occasionally I take get the oh well yeah Liverpool are not doing it that way and usually they got the response

245
00:28:40,540 --> 00:28:49,180
of well I know that but when I know that they are doing it in this way so you're not telling the truth.

246
00:28:50,410 --> 00:28:58,840
So yeah, just a few of those sorts of challenges, but mostly people were very much on board and supportive.

247
00:28:59,410 --> 00:29:05,580
Yes. And I mean, I think I've heard other people give the answer to this question, oh,

248
00:29:05,620 --> 00:29:10,960
are you aware of anybody becoming infected as a result of what was going on in the research lab?

249
00:29:11,670 --> 00:29:24,190
No, not at all. Not even through being in a lab with someone who later tested positive from an outside source.

250
00:29:26,050 --> 00:29:29,440
We've had none that I'm aware of. No transmissions.

251
00:29:29,440 --> 00:29:35,220
We've had no incidents or accidents either within the or three.

252
00:29:35,230 --> 00:29:45,760
I mean, the level of training, the level of, you know, the limited people in the labs.

253
00:29:46,450 --> 00:29:48,639
So that that was one of the other issues we had.

254
00:29:48,640 --> 00:29:58,120
We had more work that can possibly be done and especially when we had some of the social distancing requirements.

255
00:29:59,380 --> 00:30:06,970
But containment level three labs tend to have very high rates of turnover purely because of pathogens.

256
00:30:08,200 --> 00:30:14,680
So they have high turnover and yeah, everything's done in containment.

257
00:30:14,920 --> 00:30:20,380
So we had no none that I'm aware of anyway.

258
00:30:21,280 --> 00:30:22,990
Nobody told me so.

259
00:30:23,680 --> 00:30:33,730
And how far does your work overlap with people who were generally putting in safety provisions across the university for people just to prevent.

260
00:30:34,780 --> 00:30:42,800
Transmitting or catching the virus. So I because the safety office as a whole has been involved in that.

261
00:30:42,820 --> 00:30:46,550
So I would be involved in the general conversations.

262
00:30:46,570 --> 00:30:54,490
So at the start when we were talking about mask wearing and gloves and disinfectants and things like that,

263
00:30:55,180 --> 00:31:00,670
I was having quite a bit of an input just from a general biological point of view.

264
00:31:01,480 --> 00:31:08,920
But then that all went through the head of safety, through the the various higher committees,

265
00:31:08,930 --> 00:31:18,550
the silver and bronze and all those sorts of things that they were, they were helping formulate those sorts of plans.

266
00:31:20,530 --> 00:31:27,970
So yeah, it was there, but it was more my, my remit was more the research side of things.

267
00:31:28,420 --> 00:31:33,850
But you within the safety office, are you the person with the most biological expertise?

268
00:31:35,770 --> 00:31:39,520
Um, possibly. Um, yes.

269
00:31:42,280 --> 00:31:47,500
But most of it is common sense as well, from a biological perspective.

270
00:31:47,930 --> 00:31:55,320
And so, um, just general cleaning and air flows.

271
00:31:55,720 --> 00:31:57,810
Um, yeah. And,

272
00:31:59,110 --> 00:32:09,459
but I think a lot of the safety office had an involvement in that and including the safety officers who are out and about in the departments as well.

273
00:32:09,460 --> 00:32:17,170
So we have divisional safety officers were who were very knowledgeable, very helpful, were invaluable in what we did.

274
00:32:17,500 --> 00:32:21,700
And then the Justice Department or safety officers as well.

275
00:32:21,880 --> 00:32:35,560
Um, and so it was sort of a community effort of all the safety officers coming together to make comments on what needed to be implemented.

276
00:32:35,560 --> 00:32:38,620
But then equally know, we were following what government said as well.

277
00:32:38,740 --> 00:32:42,010
So and that collaboration across the team.

278
00:32:42,090 --> 00:32:46,239
Would you say that was closer with this than it is normally?

279
00:32:46,240 --> 00:32:49,240
I mean, you must you must have to liaise with those people all the time anyway.

280
00:32:49,600 --> 00:32:53,650
Yeah, we do liaise with those people all the time and and have done.

281
00:32:53,740 --> 00:33:02,200
But I think we were also asking for their opinions on things a little bit more because

282
00:33:02,200 --> 00:33:07,660
they were the people who were going to have to implement these things in the departments.

283
00:33:08,080 --> 00:33:17,110
So even like the facilities managers, because they'd be more involved in changing any of the handling systems.

284
00:33:18,190 --> 00:33:26,230
They're the people that got all the signage sorted out and and the hand sanitiser.

285
00:33:26,620 --> 00:33:36,340
They were the people binding the masks. So I think it was quite a big concerted effort, um, across the board really.

286
00:33:37,690 --> 00:33:41,620
And when did it finally let up? You said it went on for a year.

287
00:33:43,180 --> 00:33:47,920
I think it has, yeah. I think it has lit up, I think 21.

288
00:33:48,610 --> 00:33:55,240
I think the problem was there was that whole overlap of we were still dealing with quite a lot of COVID stuff,

289
00:33:55,900 --> 00:34:01,479
but the Non-covid research was starting back up again.

290
00:34:01,480 --> 00:34:10,170
And of course they'd had three months of not being able to do their research, so it was more imperative that they got on with their work.

291
00:34:10,180 --> 00:34:16,570
So and I was dealing with both sides of things then.

292
00:34:16,660 --> 00:34:23,170
So it, it was very busy, very, very busy through all of 20, 21 as well.

293
00:34:23,200 --> 00:34:31,860
Well, we were doing the paperwork for all the other stuff that had not been done during COVID and uh.

294
00:34:32,620 --> 00:34:38,679
Yeah. And I mean, do you think all the work you did on COVID has kind of set you up for this kind of thing?

295
00:34:38,680 --> 00:34:47,170
Ever happens again? Or has it changed your approach to other, um, biological safety issues?

296
00:34:47,860 --> 00:34:59,810
Um, I think, I think it has sort of set us up for, I have to say, monkeypox did make me go, oh, god, no, I think I need a do need to recover first.

297
00:35:00,640 --> 00:35:04,450
But yeah, I have to do anything about monkeypox that people start looking at.

298
00:35:04,870 --> 00:35:09,790
We had a number of queries about it. Yes. And yeah.

299
00:35:09,940 --> 00:35:15,640
So there is that going on. But, uh, I was going with that.

300
00:35:15,650 --> 00:35:28,090
So, um, yeah. So I think, yes, um, I, I do know now sort of because I was new to the role, it was, it was a baptism of fire.

301
00:35:28,480 --> 00:35:33,250
And definitely if there was another one, then we have got.

302
00:35:34,110 --> 00:35:39,840
Some level of system that where you go, Oh, right, so we need to do this, we need to that.

303
00:35:40,420 --> 00:35:48,600
And we could be slightly more proactive with contacting the researchers and trying to get, again,

304
00:35:48,600 --> 00:35:56,270
that consistent approach across the divisions and the department and spreading that information out.

305
00:35:56,280 --> 00:36:03,990
So I think that that is a good thing. It has also meant that we've tried to network a lot more people,

306
00:36:04,200 --> 00:36:10,830
so trying to get people to talk to one another rather than just be in the quiet little silos.

307
00:36:12,000 --> 00:36:18,149
Because again, yeah, the next one, I mean, this might not be a respiratory pathogen,

308
00:36:18,150 --> 00:36:26,160
but it would be it's good to know that we have these experts with handling maybe not that pathogen,

309
00:36:26,160 --> 00:36:35,000
but a respiratory pathogen or blood borne pathogen that we can then call upon and say, well, how do we do this?

310
00:36:35,010 --> 00:36:45,090
Could you train these people? Because that's the key part of it all, is is training and and supervision and monitoring people and how they work.

311
00:36:45,450 --> 00:36:51,810
Mm hmm. So, yeah, I think certainly next time, it might be a little easier.

312
00:36:52,050 --> 00:36:58,740
I don't think the workload would be an easy thing, but hopefully it wouldn't be quite as bad.

313
00:37:00,200 --> 00:37:04,670
And just turning to the impact on you personally. And presumably this office was closed.

314
00:37:04,690 --> 00:37:12,829
Yes. You were working from home. Yes. So all this liaising that you were doing with all the other people involved was happening over teams.

315
00:37:12,830 --> 00:37:18,800
Teams. Yeah, yeah, yes, teams. And they did also mean that I,

316
00:37:19,400 --> 00:37:26,570
I connected with a lot more university biological safety officers on a very regular

317
00:37:26,570 --> 00:37:32,840
basis because we were it was that shared experience and sharing our knowledge and,

318
00:37:33,230 --> 00:37:36,890
and doing the whole what do you do? How are you doing this?

319
00:37:37,820 --> 00:37:45,469
So that was quite good. It was quite sad. Is there is there a national organisation or a university now where there is

320
00:37:45,470 --> 00:37:52,730
a this is still who has a list of biological safety offices around the UK?

321
00:37:52,880 --> 00:37:56,630
I feel so encode institute.

322
00:37:56,630 --> 00:38:08,770
Oh. Technology and Research Safety Technology and Research Institute both and that they're great.

323
00:38:09,070 --> 00:38:14,680
They're really good they're quite it's more practical based.

324
00:38:14,680 --> 00:38:18,100
And the conversations that we have, they have, um,

325
00:38:19,210 --> 00:38:30,370
they have this email list and they do symposiums usually in November which are really good to go to.

326
00:38:31,720 --> 00:38:40,240
But I just, I've met people at those conferences, you know, I've got names and you get on with certain people.

327
00:38:40,600 --> 00:38:50,290
And so it was very much when, when COVID happened, contacting those people, going how, how is it going?

328
00:38:50,440 --> 00:38:53,780
You know, and sometimes it was just moral support.

329
00:38:53,800 --> 00:39:00,700
Yeah, sometimes we just have a teams meeting on a Friday at 5:00 and just download.

330
00:39:00,970 --> 00:39:04,640
Um, which yeah, it was very useful. Mhm. Mhm.

331
00:39:05,170 --> 00:39:11,080
So because it well it was very stressful, hard work and yeah,

332
00:39:11,260 --> 00:39:19,810
I have a child at home who wasn't at school and all the associated aspects of that as well.

333
00:39:19,990 --> 00:39:29,130
Um, so I yes my partner liked like to do the comment of, oh, there's that woman who lives in our house that we never see.

334
00:39:30,460 --> 00:39:36,040
Yes. Thank you. Um, so the hours were longer than you would normally do?

335
00:39:36,130 --> 00:39:41,740
By a lot longer, yeah. Can you put a figure on it as per day, days per week.

336
00:39:42,070 --> 00:39:49,180
Yeah. I mean it was yeah. I've been working till ten, 11:00 at night at work at weekends.

337
00:39:49,320 --> 00:39:57,070
So you those many a time on a Saturday night at night I was sending out emails thinking, why am I doing this?

338
00:39:58,220 --> 00:40:02,150
Um, but yeah. It is.

339
00:40:02,510 --> 00:40:08,330
And again, there was two of us pre 2000 and then they went down to just one.

340
00:40:09,680 --> 00:40:13,700
Not good timing for then we need to get an assistant.

341
00:40:14,300 --> 00:40:18,110
I didn't get an assistant until about 12 months ago.

342
00:40:18,140 --> 00:40:22,880
Oh, right. Oh, my goodness. Yes, yes, yes. So, um.

343
00:40:23,660 --> 00:40:27,590
Yeah. So that's why it was such a long go. Really?

344
00:40:28,160 --> 00:40:31,820
Mm hmm. That was a bit of an omission, wasn't it?

345
00:40:32,510 --> 00:40:37,220
I it's it's it was bad timing in that respect.

346
00:40:37,760 --> 00:40:39,560
It is possible to recruit about that.

347
00:40:40,100 --> 00:40:48,860
I think it's quite hard to recruit to these sorts of positions, especially being as everyone else was wanting some of these positions.

348
00:40:48,980 --> 00:40:50,780
Right. Yes. Yeah.

349
00:40:51,350 --> 00:41:03,110
Um, so it was again, very much leaning on other people out there in the university and hoping that they could help out in their own little ways.

350
00:41:03,110 --> 00:41:15,500
And it was useful. And again, it brought more people into knowing what was the requirements and did I mean, it was clearly tough and stressful.

351
00:41:16,280 --> 00:41:22,520
But would you say from your point of view, the fact that you were working on something that was important in relation to the pandemic,

352
00:41:23,270 --> 00:41:34,250
was supportive of your own wellbeing versus just being furloughed and not having anything to do, you know, to be nice.

353
00:41:34,850 --> 00:41:38,510
No, it's actually that spring we had, um.

354
00:41:39,020 --> 00:41:42,920
No, I mean, yes, very much that it was that.

355
00:41:43,460 --> 00:41:48,290
I think what kept me going and doing those hours was that this was important.

356
00:41:48,620 --> 00:41:56,750
You know, it was important that the researchers got their paperwork sorted and got their approvals as quickly as we could get them.

357
00:41:57,140 --> 00:42:02,450
It was important that we made sure that they were trained and that the facilities were all okay.

358
00:42:02,450 --> 00:42:07,640
So yeah, that's what kept me going in all of that.

359
00:42:08,930 --> 00:42:14,810
But yeah, there were some moments where I, I did want to just go, I've had enough.

360
00:42:16,610 --> 00:42:23,810
Um, and were you able to do anything specifically to support your own wellbeing in terms of, um,

361
00:42:24,920 --> 00:42:31,740
well, I have a dog, so that did at least mean that I had to leave the house and go for walks.

362
00:42:31,820 --> 00:42:36,950
Um, so that, that was quite useful in, in that respect.

363
00:42:37,190 --> 00:42:41,180
And sometimes I did have to do the whole no, I'm going with the dog on my own.

364
00:42:41,870 --> 00:42:45,140
I do not want company. I just want the dog.

365
00:42:45,620 --> 00:42:49,520
He doesn't talk at me. Um, so.

366
00:42:49,550 --> 00:42:54,530
Yes, sir. Oh, yes. Um, I think that sort of thing.

367
00:42:54,530 --> 00:43:00,980
And like I say, networking and the support of other people kind of kept me going.

368
00:43:02,190 --> 00:43:05,690
Yeah. And when did you start coming back into the office again?

369
00:43:06,440 --> 00:43:16,460
Um, I think it was when we had that short spell before lockdown with two or three, whichever it was, um, where we were this time.

370
00:43:16,490 --> 00:43:23,870
Yeah, we, we were back in the office then, um, because yeah.

371
00:43:23,930 --> 00:43:30,220
And we had to go out and do inspections and because obviously we have to go out to the facilities as well and check them.

372
00:43:31,370 --> 00:43:34,249
So yeah, I mean that backspace. That's a question.

373
00:43:34,250 --> 00:43:39,290
I mean normally would you if somebody was setting up something new, would you you would inspect it in person.

374
00:43:39,500 --> 00:43:42,890
Yeah. And you weren't able to do that during the lockdown? Not really, no.

375
00:43:43,640 --> 00:43:53,150
So we were having to rely on making sure that some of the paperwork was done and that they were sending me documents and,

376
00:43:53,870 --> 00:43:57,650
um, to confirm that they had done what I'd asked them to do.

377
00:43:57,830 --> 00:44:08,600
And yeah, but yeah, it is it, there's a little bit of having faith in the individuals in the facilities.

378
00:44:09,450 --> 00:44:16,680
But we're doing it now. But though, I mean, Becky and William, lovely, great people.

379
00:44:16,920 --> 00:44:20,489
Some of the other people we have out there are all great people.

380
00:44:20,490 --> 00:44:25,530
So, yeah. And at the end of the day, nobody wanted to get themselves infected.

381
00:44:25,530 --> 00:44:31,410
So self-preservation means that they were going to work to the standard anyway.

382
00:44:31,980 --> 00:44:35,690
And they were all Yeah. See all three trained anyway.

383
00:44:35,700 --> 00:44:43,180
It's just that they were trained for HIV work. So how are things now?

384
00:44:43,200 --> 00:44:47,309
Are they back to normal or are they still busy? It's still busy.

385
00:44:47,310 --> 00:44:51,150
But I think you have got MREs. I have got and this is the chefs.

386
00:44:51,600 --> 00:44:56,430
So, yeah, it's it's coming back down to normal levels.

387
00:44:57,210 --> 00:45:03,030
But we've had a lot of turnover of staff out there and in the office as well.

388
00:45:04,050 --> 00:45:13,830
So there's a lot of having to sort of retrain biological safety officers that the departments we train,

389
00:45:13,830 --> 00:45:24,630
the three managers we've had, a lot of those leave not that size, but and a lot of facilities managers have left as well.

390
00:45:24,780 --> 00:45:36,000
So I think a lot of people took that time to reassess their lives, um, and maybe take some life choices that were appropriate for them.

391
00:45:37,680 --> 00:45:41,570
Always envious. Hmm.

392
00:45:42,610 --> 00:45:46,230
But you're. You're still here for the time being. I'm still here.

393
00:45:46,260 --> 00:45:51,660
I'm not old enough to make those choices yet. It's not quite that yet.

394
00:45:55,070 --> 00:46:02,060
And yet my former colleague used to regularly send me messages saying, I'm so sorry.

395
00:46:03,490 --> 00:46:07,100
I'm so sorry I left. Like, thank you.

396
00:46:07,760 --> 00:46:12,800
Don't blame you. It's fine. It's just bad timing.

397
00:46:14,390 --> 00:46:17,710
And occasionally he got these messages from me.

398
00:46:19,160 --> 00:46:22,880
What we do with the. Have I done this right?

399
00:46:23,240 --> 00:46:26,700
Um hmm. Well, that was.

400
00:46:26,780 --> 00:46:31,020
It was nice that you had a shoulder to lean on.

401
00:46:31,530 --> 00:46:38,480
Yes. Yes, I had quite a few shoulders to lean on, which was very helpful for the, um.

402
00:46:40,100 --> 00:46:45,270
So what would you say was the main sort of take home? Message.

403
00:46:46,440 --> 00:46:53,280
Hesitate to say less. Listen, the pandemic has it has changed your attitude or your approach to your work?

404
00:46:54,270 --> 00:46:58,590
I don't think it's changed my attitude or approach to work because.

405
00:47:00,800 --> 00:47:04,700
I personally think we did a pretty good job.

406
00:47:07,420 --> 00:47:12,760
I think as a whole the government did what they could do.

407
00:47:13,730 --> 00:47:18,130
How? Well, limited by the information out there.

408
00:47:20,980 --> 00:47:30,490
Again, I think in the fullness of time, we'll maybe find out more about how it happened, what could have been done.

409
00:47:30,610 --> 00:47:38,229
But I suspect certainly with certainly any any illness that has an infectious

410
00:47:38,230 --> 00:47:44,050
period before you show symptoms is always going to be difficult to contain.

411
00:47:45,040 --> 00:47:58,950
And so, you know, they were lucky with cells in particular that it wasn't it didn't spread in the same manner that cells, too, did so.

412
00:47:59,920 --> 00:48:06,430
And I guess we've been lucky with influenza as well. But there will be more pandemics.

413
00:48:09,520 --> 00:48:14,590
I think we just need to get used to that fund and knowing that that's the case.

414
00:48:15,550 --> 00:48:19,660
Is there anything you would change about how your specific area is managed?

415
00:48:20,320 --> 00:48:24,400
I can't ask you to sort out the country, not since the government can't do that.

416
00:48:25,870 --> 00:48:29,859
But in in specifically in university biological safety.

417
00:48:29,860 --> 00:48:33,880
Is there anything that you would change as a result of this experience?

418
00:48:36,700 --> 00:48:41,980
No, no, no, really, I just I yeah, I think it's more the.

419
00:48:45,310 --> 00:48:54,300
I think people were cooperative with each other. But in normal times, I do think there's a little bit more of a you know, this is my territory.

420
00:48:54,390 --> 00:49:01,560
This is this is my lab. And I'm whether that's changing a bit more now, I don't know.

421
00:49:03,150 --> 00:49:05,190
But you do tend to find that.

422
00:49:05,760 --> 00:49:17,480
I think that could be a more strategic management, particularly of the SEAL theories and the work that goes on in the home.

423
00:49:17,890 --> 00:49:25,240
So. But that's for high management to decide, not me.

424
00:49:25,990 --> 00:49:34,500
But we're working on some of these things. I think you should be home.

425
00:49:34,570 --> 00:49:37,120
Good. Let me go practice.