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Not Just Travel agent cares for husband with coronavirus

A homeworker is balancing her job with looking after her husband who has been struck down with coronavirus.

Caerphilly-based Not Just Travel agent Emma Summerill, who also has six-year-old daughter with a serious heart condition, is trying to remain upbeat despite not knowing how long the global virus pandemic will last.

Speaking to Travel Weekly, Summerill said she is resigned to also becoming infected with the virus.

She said: “My husband works for the ambulance service and he was struck down with coronavirus on Saturday (March 14). We’re on 14 days isolation and I am waiting to get it. You see your future ahead of you.

“We’re still sharing a bed and a bathroom – it is coming my way. Once it is here, what can you do about it?”


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Describing her husband Leighton’s symptoms, she said: “On the first day, he was quite tired and achy, and he did not have a temperature.

“However, the next day his temperature was very high, he felt dizzy and he found breathing painful. He said it felt like he was breathing in sandpaper.

“He is certainly feeling better. He was rather unwell for a few days.”

Summerill admits she is working “all hours” to rebook customers on new holidays and cancel existing bookings, while looking after a daughter with a complex heart condition called pulmonary atresia.

Asked her about the chances of her daughter getting the virus, Summerill added: “It is a bit of an unknown about her. If she is going to get it now at least it will be when the hospitals are not swamped.”

“I am trying to do a lot of my work in the morning,” she said. “The two obvious problems are there are less bookings coming in and we’re also losing bookings to cancellations. Those are the concerns.

“We do not know how it is going to end. I do not have any customers abroad – thank goodness.”

Summerill also added that she is trying to build her customer database and be an authoritative voice on social media, while being reassuring and informative.

“When people want to book a holiday again, they will come back to me,” she said. “I think everyone is hoping that there will be a resurgence once this is over.”

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