• Question: How will coronavirus affect your work

    Asked by anon-266989 to Veronica on 5 Nov 2020.
    • Photo: Veronica Caraffini

      Veronica Caraffini answered on 5 Nov 2020: last edited 5 Nov 2020 6:16 pm

      Coronavirus affected my work during the first lockdown, since the lab where I work had to close. I couldn’t work in the lab for around 3 months, but I still did a lot of work at home. This work included reading a lot about the research in kidney cancer going on around the world, having meeting with my supervisor and the lab and thinking of what experiments to do when I would come back to lab. During this time I was also a volunteer at the Cambridge testing center, where I used my knowledge to help with the coronavirus testing. I was part of a big group of people who were receiving the coronavirus tests, done by people in the UK to find out if they had coronavirus, and worked to give them their results. At the moment, coronavirus is not really affecting my work since I can go to the lab normally. I wear a mask during the work, and my colleagues do the same, and we don’t have meetings in person but only online. So it’s a bit of a different way of working but we are doing our best!

Comments

  • Photo: Tammy

    Tammy commented on :

    The Coronavirus has affected my work in two ways. Firstly our lab had to close temporarily and we all began working from home which was a challenge for my colleagues as not much lab work can be done at home. Secondly our clinical trials were paused, patients still received their treatments as usual but the research nurses who would take extra samples and recruit patients were transferred to ICU or Covid wards. We’re back in the lab now but in much smaller numbers and our trials have started to reopen.

  • Photo: Romain

    Romain commented on :

    The Coronavirus has affected everyone, including the scientists, of course! For me personally, it has changed the way I interact with people: I spend a lot of times discussing ideas or troubleshooting problems with colleagues by talking through it. So a lot of my work is now done over the internet instead of in person. It’s quite different but, in a way, it can be more efficient because you can jump from one (virtual) room to another (virtual) room quickly. And this means that I work from home much more often. So I have had to set up a little area in my living room where I have a computer desk and a monitor and it’s like a home office.
    One side of this that I appreciate is that it’s easier for me to cook and eat well (because I make it the way I like it), rather than eating at the canteen!

  • modalex commented on :

    IMPORTANT: This question and its answers are about coronavirus (COVID-19). The information on this page might be out of date or wrong. For up-to-date health information and advice, please go to the NHS website: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/