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'People blamed me for bringing Covid to UK'

Gemma Sherlock
BBC News, Liverpool
BBC A man wearing glasses and a flat cap, and a brown fur-lined collar jacket, looks to the right of the camera, as he stands outside of a hospitalBBC
Matt Raw, pictured when he left quarantine at Arrowe Park Hospital, in Wirral

When Matt Raw was evacuated from Wuhan along with a number of other Britons facing exposure Covid-19 in 2020, he never expected the virus to have "ramifications" that have changed the way we live to this day.

Five years on from his journey and subsequent fortnight of quarantine at a facility behind Wirral's Arrowe Park Hospital, Matt said there were "still people who blame me for bringing it into England".

"Whenever I tell anybody that we were the first people repatriated from Wuhan, naturally the first joke is: 'Oh, so you brought it here'."

Matt, along with his mother and wife Ying, were among the 83 Britons transported from RAF Brize Norton, where their evacuation flight from Wuhan had landed in the UK.

A convoy of coaches, complete with police escort, then moved the repatriated Brits to the isolation unit at Arrowe Park Hospital.

They would later be ed by 11 more British nationals from Wuhan.

Matt Raw A man wearing a face mask looks into the camera in a selfie style, while two women wearing face masks also look at the camera, sitting on plane seatsMatt Raw
Matt Raw flew from Wuhan to England with his wife, Ying, and his mother

It was the first sight of the virus arriving in the UK, and the first quarantine unit in the UK since 1978.

For Matt, and his family, the 180-mile (290km) coach journey was a "bizarre experience".

"We had the media driving past on motorbikes, vans, all trying to get a glimpse inside and I've got a feeling that maybe the windows were blacked out but we just sat there and waved."

He told BBC Radio Merseyside they were sitting at "least five rows back" from the driver, who had no face protection.

At the time, the Chinese city of Wuhan had been identified as the source of virus, but it had not yet been named and no rules on masks or social-distancing were established in the UK.

Matt said the reason he decided to return to the UK was because he believed it was in his mother's best interests to leave Wuhan and head back to England.

He said the situation was "completely new to everybody" including staff at Arrowe Park.

A white coach pulls into a hospital at night time. The coach driver can be seen not wearing a mask, while someone is stood next to him wearing face coverings and a body suit
Six coaches were led by a police escort to the rear of the hospital and on to a side road leading to the accommodation block

"The staff had been well briefed, they made every possible plan to be able to try and cater to all of our needs when we arrived."

On arrival, the patients were greeted with a round of applause before being looked at by doctors for existing medications and others that may have been needed.

The repatriated Brits were then moved into a staff accommodation block, which had been cordoned off behind the hospital, sharing apartments with communal kitchens.

Matt, who has now moved back to Wuhan, said despite it becoming obvious the government in England were not up to speed with locking down as they were in China, he and his family took quarantine in "their stride".

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