Daughter of the first UK person to die with Covid hails vaccine as ‘our only way out’

Jane Buckland said “without a shadow of a doubt people should jump at their chance to get their jab.”
Family handout
John Dunne @jhdunne29 January 2021

The daughter of the first person in the UK to die with Covid-19 today called for everyone to jump at the chance of a jab as the family marks the first anniversary of his death.

Peter Attwood, 84, a retired company secretary, from Chatham, Kent, went to hospital with a cough and fever on January 7 last year.

He died three weeks later on January 30 with heart failure and pneumonia being initially blamed.

But a post-mortem later showed Covid was a cause of death making him the UK’s first recorded virus victim and the first outside China. Traces of the virus were found in Mr Attwood's lungs.  

His daughter Jane Buckland, 47, told the Standard that the family had been hit with a double blow after her mother Jean, 86, recently tested positive for the virus and is fighting for her life. 

Addressing those who are wary of taking the covid jab she hailed the vaccination as "our only way out".  

She said: "It's been a terrible year and my dad's death has taken it's toll on all of us, especially my mother. She is now in a very bad way and I haven't been able to see her. it's heart-breaking.  

"Without a shadow of a doubt people should jump at their chance to get their jab. My father and mother would have, they always had their flu vaccine and listened to medical advice. My father would have told people to get vaccinated and so do I, it is the only thing the UK seems to have done well and we need to take advantage of this."  

Mrs Buckland said she developed a Covid-like illness on December 15, 2019, six weeks before her father’s death and now believes she passed it onto her father.  

She could not have known that was carrying the deadly virus because China, where the pandemic originated, had failed to reveal its dangers.

Mr Attwood's daughter added: "This week the figure hit 100,000 deaths which is beyond terrible.  

"I felt so guilty because I believe I gave covid to him. It has taken a long time to get over that, China has a lot of questions to answer."

Mrs Buckland, who lives in Chatham had been caring for her mother for the past year until her health badly deteriorated. Her mother and father had been married for 50 years. The family are coming together on Zoom to mark the day he died and share memories of his life. Her mother, who has dementia, is in isolation in the care home where she is living.  

She added: "My father was an amazing man and I do not want him remembered as just as a statistic. So many people have suffered. China must be held accountable but so must the government. We always seem to have been on the back foot in the crisis. There seems to have been so many mistakes. Lives could have been saved it's head to get your head around the scale of what has happened.

"The one positive is the vaccination programme, long may that continue."

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