Now, when the world locked down, we got used to empty streets, shuttered restaurants and empty offices. And as the world opens up, its cities may not be what they were before. In the us, big employers are reconsidering their leases on expensive City Centre Offices as employees get used to working from home. Katty kay reports. Downtown washington before the pandemic. Downtown washington during lockdown. Which one of these will the capital of the biggest economy in the world look like after covid . Deborahjordan used to work in the heart of washington. Shes glad to have given up her 45 minute commute during shutdown, and shes even gladder that the virus has prompted her employer to finally trust people to work from home. Perhaps people have stepped up as well, because theyre not in the office and theres nobody checking on them. And it really becomes a matter of, you know, what is the product that youre supposed to deliver and are you delivering it . Its a perfect storm of technology that allows us to work successfully from home, employers who need to save money on rents and people who dont want to be in crowded spaces. I dont live in an apartment building, so this is my first time in an elevator in nine weeks. And it feels like a virus petri dish. I cannot wait to get out of here. And its notjust me, or deborah, or you making these calculations. Millions of employers and their employees are now making the same decisions. The majority of tenants are starting to think that their space is going to shrink over the next couple years. Just because theyre not going to want to have employees in the building . Theyre not going to want to have employees in the building, they want to comply with social distancing. And also because work from home is working. Frank pinto works in the commercial real estate business in downtown washington. Smart retailers are looking for options. Options being, do we move to the suburbs and open more in community centric, neighbourhood centric locations . They may not have as much foot traffic as they have in an urban area like a city like a dc, but their cost basis is much lower. But what about the drycleaners, nail salons and cafes that are the Collateral Damage of offices not filling up . Places like immigrant food, which opened its doors just five months before the pandemic, back when you had to queue to get lunch here. The good old days, theyre gone. And im afraid they may be gone for good. Peter schechter owns immigrant food. The impact, he says, stretches far beyond his restaurant. I just dont think the money is going to be there to drive a real estate boom that is going to bring in this mixed use of restaurants and real estate and living that weve had driving cities like pittsburgh or denver or even washington, dc here, which has really created an enormous boom a boom not only in real estate but a boom in gastronomy, a boom in restaurants, a boom in bars, a boom in places for music. Thats all in danger now because commercial real estate cannot be the driver of that any more. This virus came from cities, it spread in cities, it hit cities hardest. The question now is whether it kills our cities even after its been beaten. Next on bbc News Coronavirus your stories. Welcome to coronavirus your stories, a programme about how covid is affecting the lives of people around the world. Im philippa thomas. And this week were hearing stories from the hospital wards. Later, a junior Hospital Doctor whos also a National Beauty queen. But i want to start with the stories of two men whove survived near death experiences. Well first go to philadelphia in the united states, where Brett Breslow has been undergoing weeks of rehabilitation. This is my last full day at the rehabilitation centre. Im looking forward to going home and being with my family after, well, about 2. 5 months of being separated from them. Well hear more about your experience, brett, but ijust wanted to explain to our viewers, before covid 19 hit you, you were probably healthier than the rest of us . Um, i guess i was a fairly healthy guy. I had a few extra pounds, but i worked out five or six days a week. I like to eat healthy, fresh vegetables, stay in tune with my body. And i would say i was normal health. You were a coach as well . Yes, i coach youth football, american football here in the united states, in newjersey, in southern newjersey, just across the river from philadelphia. Eighth grade boys about 13 years old, and i run up and down the field quite a bit. Well, brett, i think the other member of our conversation has something in common with you also a sports coach. I want to introduce Brendan Sheridan from West Yorkshire here in england. Brendan, hows today so far . Ah, yeah, its a bright, sunny day, so which helps getting up. But similar days to all the others since ive come out of icu at pinderfields. You have also spent quite a lot of time in intensive care. And i think like brett, you were Pretty Healthy going in. Covid i9 then hit you very fast, didnt it . Uh, yeah. You know, i train 5 6 times a week, just like the like brett. One day i got up fine, just started getting shortness of breath, no symptoms of covid, Pretty Healthy, keeping myself fit and ten hours later i almost stopped breathing and then and woke up two weeks later out of a coma. Do you remember coming out of that . Do you remember that moment when you woke up and how it felt . Uh, yeah, but its what keeps me awake at night. Just the first time i obviously knew that something was obviously something was seriously wrong because i woke up on the ventilator and the hood on, you know, helping me breathe. Because i had picked up another infection and got pneumonia while i was in there. I had to be packed in ice to bring my temperature down, which obviously froze my body a little bit, so i couldnt really move when i first woke up. You know, a bit of panic set in when i realised where i was and what was up with me. Brett, do you remember that point when you were taken off the ventilator, came out of the coma and realised that people were looking at you like you were some sort of exhibit . Yes. I was in what they call a negative pressure room. I didnt know quite where i was. And i remember them sort of telling me that they were going to pull a tube out. I was still sort of midway asleep at that point. They walked me through the process, told me to take a deep breath, they pulled the tube out and asked me to open my eyes, and there was a world of people standing in front of me, and sort of this double paned glass room where the medical personnel were all geared up in protective equipment. Some behind one in a vestibule, still getting clothed up, some who were already in the room with me, giving me oxygen to make sure that i could continue to breathe. Um, yeah, it was an interesting experience. Just like brendan, i couldnt move very much and i was starting to wonderjust how i got there and what had transpired and how long i had been out. I think both of you were the first patient in the hospital that you were in to be put onto a ventilator. Brendan, did you have that feeling that hospital staff obviously trying their hardest but theyre dealing with something new . Um, yeah, i suppose it was traumatic for everybody, notjust obviously the patients, but the staff as well. Because obviously its a new pandemic and i suppose theyre winging it a little bit. But obviously the safety comes first. But, yeah, i can i just remember especially in pinderfields icu, just how overrun the staff was. You know, from one patient to another. When i started to come out and realise but i didnt actually find out what id actually been through until i had my memory coming back and icu nurses were coming up to the wards to see how i was. Obviously i was first on the ventilator and the youngest, i think, in pinderfields to have covid i9. But, you know, pretty close to death twice, i think. Speaking to family members, so, obviously its traumatic, the Ripple Effect it has on the staff and obviously the families is huge. So, its, yeah, a pretty daunting experience, but were finding out little bits after i woke up. And then coming out of that intensive Care Experience for both of you. Brett, i know that you feel youre lucky to be in the rehab centre that youre in now, but it isnt a given that you get to go to a rehab centre . No, its not. We had to find a facility that was, you know, willing to accept a previously positive covid i9 patient. The folks at this location hadnt taken any prior to me, prior to myself, and were still considering whether or not they were going to take any covid i9 recovery folks. I am really grateful that they did. This is an amazing place. Theyve now have an entire floor dedicated to covid i9 recovery. You told me it took you about a month to be able to sit up without motion sickness and get out of the bed. And you still have problems, dont you . Your kidney, is that acute kidney failure that youre struggling with still . Actually, um, yeah. I had some motion sickness, so that every time it was really hard to start my rehab because every time i would sit up i would get very dizzy, my Blood Pressure would drop, my heart rate would elevate and that was about all i could do for the first couple of weeks of rehab. They really were just trying to figure out what those issues were. They discovered that i had a vestibular problem and they performed the vestibular manoeuvre on me and that really was the start of being able to do some more physical rehab. It took a couple of hours to really clear my inner ear and the balance issues that i was having. And then we slowly got to the point where i was able to stand. It took about two to three weeks after i got here just to get there. And when i could first stand, i could only stand for 15 to 20 seconds at a time. I was just so exhausted from having been down for so long, between the time i was in the coma and the time i was too dizzy to get up out of bed. It was probably about five weeks. And my body was just so deconditioned that i would my legs would shake and i would lose my breath very easily. Now im able to walk about the length of a football field. So, thats gotten a lot better. My kidneys have not recovered yet. Were still hopeful, but were talking about converting me from acute to chronic kidney failure here in a couple of weeks if we dont see better results, and what that might mean. Brendan, i know youll sympathise with just how hard it is to get back on your feet and get going. But also, weve talked about the mental scars, i know its difficult sleeping. You get flashbacks, dont you . Yeah. And they tend to be getting worse as the weeks go on. I think ive had about 16 hours of sleep in two weeks. Im constantly waking up as if im suffocating and still in hospital. And then not being able to get my breath back in bed, which makes me panic. But then the other flashbacks are obviously because of how fast it happened. I couldnt i have flashbacks of not saying goodbye to my kids and my family and telling them i love them, if that was the case, that i wasnt going to be around anymore. And at one point my life flashing before my eyes in hospital and nobody acknowledging me and trying to get peoples attention. And i could hear my mum and my brother and my kids talking to me and ijust couldnt, theyjust couldnt hear me and its. Even now it gets me, it chokes me a little bit because i can sympathise with brett. I was a little bit quicker in my recovery and you know, its unfortunate for brett, that hes actually suffering a little bit more than me, but i suppose with the game of sport that hes in, hes a tough cookie and im sure hell recover pretty quickly and fingers crossed that he does. Brendan, im sure everyone watching. Our hearts go out to you and we appreciate you sharing your experience with us. I want to give the last word to brett, because brett, you might be going home tomorrow. That must be so uppermost in your mind just getting home again. It truly is. I miss my family. I know that they miss me. And im ready to a sort of, restart my life. You know, when i woke up in the hospital, there were so many things that were wrong that i wasnt sure life was ever going to be the same as it was. Im very excited to get home and try to do the best we can to get back to where we were and spend some more time together. Thank you. Brett breslow and Brendan Sheridan, thank you very much giving us your stories. Next, a 24 year old Hospital Doctor whos also a National Beauty queen. In fact, the first south asian born miss england. Ive been speaking to Bhasha Mukherjee in between her nightshift at a hospital in lincolnshire. None of us prepared for this at medical school, covid i9 pandemics and things like that. We prepared for the usual heart attacks and strokes. But its nice to see that everybody has each others back at this time and is prepared to help each other. Im not seeing a lot of one upmanship or anything like that, because everyones in the same boat. In a way, it is called the great equaliser for that reason no one knows any better than any other person about this disease. When you say you have that feeling that everybody has each others back, i know that when you were first announced, when you first became miss england, you experienced something of a racist backlash, and i wanted to ask you about the attitudes then and perhaps what might be changing. Yes, so i always felt a sense of, you know, imposter syndrome being miss england in a way. I felt great, absolutely, that i was representing south asians and migrant populations in this country who equally are a part of this country. Weve been living here for years and years and generations, but in a way theres always been a divide where immigrant families and, you know, ethnic minority families, we always keep to ourselves and we dont always mix in the way that, i suppose, everybody else does and caucasians do. So i felt when i did win that there was a lot of backlash, especially on the media and on press, where people kept saying the same comment over and over again, oh, shes not english, though. Shes not english, though. But now i feel a great pride that under those comments, theyre still there, bear in mind, i have some people saying, shes a doctor, she is serving on the front lines. You probably know some of the statistics that some of the highest risk populations are the bame populations, but yet they make up such a large portion of the key worker population. So it makes me feel proud that we are finally able to show people that we are notjust here to steal peoples jobs but were actually here to serve the country and be as, you know, equal in the Playing Field in terms of being a true british citizen. I feel great that i am holding this title of miss england, and also serving the country, im serving england at a time of need. So yeah, i feel great about that. You were a first, i think, the first miss england of south asian background, so you were going to draw a lot of attention, and when you talk about the way the virus discriminates, appears to discriminate too, that gets attention . Yes. Covids not the only one. Theres been many other diseases before covid that have done this, and we just are seeing this more because covid shows a direct relationship and it shows it very quickly. Things like diabetes, things like heart disease, several diseases that are more common in ethnic minorities and bame populations. Weve just ignored it because theyre chronic illnesses, but as were seeing, actually chronic illnesses are one of the reasons why you might perform poorly with covid i9. But for us at the front lines, doctors and medics, this isnt too surprising actually because we do see this in medicine is quite a lot. Viruses and many other diseases are just the same they treat you based on your genetics and your susceptibility to a disease is based on your genetics. Of course, if youre from a certain ethnicity, genetics has a massive role in what diseases you have. One of the positive things you told me, dr mukherjee, was as far as the patients are concerned, especially if theyre infected with covid i9, if theyre desperately ill or dying, you become their family, they reach out to you and youre not just a doctor to them. Its been a very humbling experience for me on the front lines, because the hospital i work at, boston in lincolnshire, predominantly. Before i went to work there, id heard they have quite conservative populations there, and the hospital actually has some of the most diverse employees in terms of theres lots of african doctors there, lots of indian doctors there, pakistani doctors there, but seeing that actually covid has actually flipped it all on its head. At this point in time, everybody thats in hospital is alone and at this point of time, a nurse, a doctor, whatever their skin colour, is the only person who is able to take that pain away, is able to hold their hand, is able to stroke their forehead. And i myself have done this at odd hours of the night, at 3am ive been the first person to see a patient whos really in a lot of pain and they do want to hold your hand. And then i do actually think look at this, this is humanity at its best. When youre in pain, you forget about all these preconceived notions. You just look at the person as another human to hold and touch and get comfort from. I feel very privileged and humbled to be in a position to give people that support and comfort. Bhasha mukherjee, i want to ask you about what comes next for you and patients. We seem to be getting past the surge, do things get easier or are there other problems . The surge was a time where the nhs, i feel, was the most supported. In terms of the government, various charities, they came forward, they acted swiftly, they were right there and even the nhs itself, the trusts and the managerial point of view, they acted responsibly to try to get more staffing and more resources, more incentives for the frontliners, but now were past the surge, were actually going to be struggling more. It doesnt sound usual for that to happen but thats the case. If you think about it, when covid was happening, we, in a way, stopped a lot of the usual services of the hospital because we were only focusing on the really unwell and the really emergency cases. So theres a massive backlog of everything that we stopped during the surge. Now also that were coming past the surge, were having to return back to normalcy. And some of the incentives, some of the resources and some of the staffing and services have been taken away. So this restoration period is actually going to be more difficult to handle, ifeel, than the actual peak. We are already seeing a reflection of this at my hospital. The stresses are high because the rotors are being changed. The usual doctors are having to work longer hours to compensate for the way things were running beforehand, and now were seeing more and more patients returning back to work because obviously the government and everybodys tired of being in lockdown, and now theyre seeing the usual pressures in a e again. Theres certain patients who dont need to be in hospital coming back again. The population as a whole is maybe starting to think that its over, but its not over. The hospitals still have active Covid Patients and its still dangerous for you to go into hospital unless you absolutely have to. Doctor mukherjee, would would you say is the final thing you would like our viewers to take away from what youre saying today . What should be remembered most, do you think . What i would like people to understand from what im telling you is that that its time that we start to really introspect, think about the way weve been treating people, not forget what covid taught us. Still maintain some of the things that weve learned from it, because if we dont, then were going to be back to square one. Its still too soon to break lockdown rules. People are already having parties at home and stuff. Please try to hold on and try to make this time part of your life rather than just a small period that we have to do kind of hold tight and get through it. We have to get normalised and adapt to this. Thats what id like to say take it in your stride. We are all struggling at this time, so lets do it altogether. Bhasha mukherjee, miss england 2019 and a Hospital Doctor on the front lines. Im philippa thomas, thank you forjoining me on coronavirus your stories. Hello. We know this spring has been warm. Its been very dry in some spots. And now news aboutjust how sunny its been, with the met office saying provisionalfigures indicate that its been the uks sunniest spring on record. And with High Pressure close by for friday into the weekend, most will stay sunny and dry, warm, very warm, even hot in some spots. In fact, friday, the flow of air around this High Pressure as it moves north across the uk will favour parts of scotland to see the uks High Temperature of the day, close to 28 celsius. Now, we start the day with temperatures for some in single figures, though they will rise quickly in the sunshine. Any low cloud across parts of eastern coastal england will disappear, along with any misty low cloud around the murray firth in scotland. Orkney brightening up, shetland staying mainly cloudy. But for most of the uk, its sunshine all the way. It is now a prevailing east southeastly breeze. And that means that east facing coasts will see temperatures towards the teens rather than the low to mid 20s across the bulk of the uk, and, again, nudging the upper 20s in the hottest parts of scotland. Temperature not the only thing high. Uv levels as well. Strong may sunshine. Do take care if youre outside for any period of time. And pollen, moderate to high for many of us, as grass pollen levels are on the increase. Now, friday looks like a fine evening, plenty of sunshine to end the day. Again, temperatures will head down overnight, so if you do try to cool the house down overnight, were expecting some spots, again, tojust dip down into single figures. And a largely sunny start to saturday morning. And again, just to show you the big picture, its High Pressure maybe just pushing out towards scandinavia, but it is still blocking weather fronts that would give us some rain otherwise from getting to us from the atlantic. So, on saturday, there may be a bit of patchy cloud developing here and there, the sun may turn hazy in some spots, but for most, its a sunny story, a brighter one in shetland as well. Still the breeze keeping some eastern coastal parts cooler than elsewhere. Again, were talking widely in the low to mid 20s. And then on sunday, again, some patchy cloud developing here and there, but for most places, it will be sunny, it will be dry, it will be very warm. Just a hint of something cooler at the end of next week. Welcome to bbc news. Im Lewis Vaughan jones. Our top stories the Us National Guard has been deployed in minneapolis to help control unrest triggered by the killing of an unarmed black man by police. They terrorise, they murder our children. And we have done nothing. Well get the reaction of dr bernice king, daughter of civil rights activist Martin Luther king. Western countries condemn chinas planned new Hong Kong Security law, saying it threatens basic freedoms. Targeting twitter President Trump signs an executive order aimed at social media companies. Easing the lockdown in england and scotland, where people can