Earlier this month, Steve Bladon, a father of four, watched with some unease as the prime minister announced the lifting of all Covid restrictions in England. After two years of the pandemic – the lockdowns, the legal requirements to self-isolate, the social distancing and mandatory masks – the message from government was that it may not be over, but it’s time to learn to live with Covid.
As the headteacher of a primary school in a small town in Lincolnshire, Bladon, 46, knows as much as anyone about living with the virus. He has led his team and school community tirelessly through the pandemic, delivering remote education and food parcels, reassuring anxious parents and keeping colleagues calm.
It’s been exhausting but rewarding, and he’s proud of what his school has achieved. Now, however, he’s one of as many as 1.3 million people in the UK learning to live with long Covid – that’s an altogether different challenge.
“My life has changed profoundly,” he wrote in a recent blog. “I now feel fatigued and exhausted almost all of the time. I have no energy, like someone has removed my batteries. On the worst days of the last few months, I’ve been sitting or lying down worrying about breathing. Breathing is life itself. When you’re struggling to breathe, everything else falls into perspective.”
It’s a far cry from the fit, energetic man Bladon was not so long ago. Long Covid has affected him in all sorts of unexpected ways. When the Guardian interviewed him last week, he warned he sometimes loses track mid-sentence and forgets words. It’s something that’s happened since he contracted the virus.
“It’s like being in somebody else’s body,” he says. “I wake up in the morning and whereas I would normally jump up at once and go running before work, now I don’t sleep very well. When I wake up I feel exhausted. It’s like having no energy, no fuel, no batteries. There’s nothing there.
“I get up, I feel lousy. As a matter of pride I think oh, I’ll hoover the front room, I’ll put the breakfast things away. But if I do anything I feel shattered. I’ve gone from being non-stop to having to think about every step. When you get in this situation you realise how much work means to you and how big a part of your life it is.”
Bladon, whose children are aged from five to 13, has been teaching for 23 years. He’s been a headteacher for 11 of those, the last four and a half years at Horncastle primary school in Lincolnshire. “Headship is always a challenge,” he says, “but the last couple of years have been so turbulent and unpredictable, and difficult to navigate at times because there was no precedent. It’s been a bit like being entered into an endurance event but with no finish line.”
He remembers vividly the day the prime minister announced the nation was going into lockdown in March 2020. It seems a long time ago. “We were all just looking at each other. We didn’t know what to expect,” he says.
As the first wave of the pandemic swept across the globe, Horncastle primary – like every school in the country – closed to all but the most vulnerable children and those of key workers. Everything was new. Government guidance began to arrive thick and fast, landing in inboxes day and night, weekends and holidays. Teachers learned a whole new way of teaching remotely.
“We don’t have the best wifi in this part of the world,” says Bladon. “A lot of children did not have devices. But our staff responded brilliantly. They delivered food packages to families in need and helped parents access food banks when they faced hardship.
For the first 18 months of the pandemic, Bladon and his school saw relatively few cases among the 500 pupils and 70 staff, but since September there have been multiple outbreaks. “In the worst week we had over 20 staff off. Parents have been worried. Staff have been worried.”
There have been difficult conversations with parents, reluctant to send their children to school. There have been bereavements. Staff and pupils have been ill. “The last two years have been the hardest mentally and physically of my whole career in terms of leading a community, but equally they’ve probably been some of the most proud and rewarding of times.”
Then on 9 December last year, everything changed for Bladon. As he wrote in his blog: “I’ll remember that day for some time. I’d actually forgotten to test at home that morning so I took a lateral flow test in my office as soon as I remembered.
“The double lines came as a shock. I had a heavy cold but no other symptoms. I quickly gathered my things and left school, in something of a haze. December 9th was actually the last time I set foot in school. In fact, I’ve only occasionally left the house since.”
Bladon had been double vaccinated but was not yet eligible for the booster when the virus struck.
After the challenges and restrictions of living with Covid, he’d so been looking forward to all the traditional Christmas celebrations at school and at home. Instead, he isolated with his seven-year-old daughter (who tested positive the day after), and though he felt very unwell with an intense cold, facial pain, fatigue, tight chest and loss of smell, he was not admitted to hospital.
After 10 days of isolation he emerged and tried to get back to normal life in time for Christmas. “We had a really busy week. I was feeling OK, not 100%. I thought, I’m through the worst of it. But as the days went on, I was really beginning to feel quite tired.”
Some time between Christmas and the new year, he went for a run. “I’ve always been into running. I agreed to go with a mate who was coming back from injury. We ran five kilometres and stopped every kilometre. We went a bit slower than both of us normally would, but I felt quite good. Four or five days later I tried the same thing again, but running by myself, and I just felt completely dreadful.” After a kilometre he gave up and went home to bed. “My chest was hurting. I got into bed and I stayed there for pretty much 24 hours.”
It was the onset of post-Covid syndrome, or long Covid, and it’s been a battle ever since. “Going from being really busy and fit to almost housebound – it’s taken a bit of getting used to,” says Bladon. “I now feel fatigued and exhausted almost all of the time,” he wrote in his blog. “If I get up from a chair too suddenly, just to go to another room, my heart rate soars. If I go upstairs or do a simple job, like emptying a bin, I lose my breath.”
Following medical advice, he is taking things slowly, trying to build up his strength and stamina. Some days are bad, some are better. “I put my faith in medicine and doctors. I’m being well looked after. I’ve had good support from my GP and from my employers at the Wellspring Academy Trust. I avoid Googling anything and trust that my body is recovering.
“This is a new virus. In some people it’s taking a long time to work through the body. The doctors’ opinion is that I was fit and healthy, it’s simply a matter of resting. I’m having to accept the fact that I might be in it for the long haul.” He can’t wait to get back to school, back to normal life. In the meantime, his deputy is acting as headteacher.
“I regret being so ill, but it has not put me off teaching. I love working in a school. I love being with children. Making a difference is what it’s about. I think I can still do that, and that’s what I want to do, but goodness me, it’s been very, very hard.”
I ask him about what he thinks now of the government’s decision to lift all Covid restrictions. “I’m not comfortable with the decision. Nothing has changed substantially to what’s happening at ground level in schools. People are becoming ill with Covid still. As I’ve found, some people get very ill.”
