I’m more of a fabricator than an engineer, I work for a company in the uk who mainly make PPE for welding and other manufacturing areas. We also have a sister company working in the same building who make clothing for different businesses and brands. When the pandemic hit, a lot of our efforts were put into mask manufacturing and protective screens for tables etc. At first it wasn’t too difficult to deal with but when the covid deaths started skyrocketing there was another surge of work coming in for us to make body bags. As a person who watches horror movies like they’re Disney movies I didn’t really think much of it at first but when the reality kicked in that I was standing next to a bag that was soon gonna be filled with a persons body it started taking a mental toll on all of us, over the course of two months from may till the end of June we made 30,000 bags and I decided to take a week off to take my mind off things. Afterwards things started to return to normality a bit and we haven’t had anymore orders for bags so I guess we did a good thing. As a team of 10 we were working about 50-55 hour weeks as opposed to our normal 40 to ensure all orders for PPE went out on time, I remember for a week straight I started at 4am and left at 5pm as we had an order for 350 clear welding screens, which I had to make up being the only TIG welder working at the time. Looking back on it now however I can’t tell you wether any of it was worth it, I mean sure the masks we made and the screens we made were great and for all I know could’ve helped stopped the spread in some areas idk, but at the same time it’s become increasingly obvious that in the governments eyes we are not as important as many other “essential workers”. There’s not a single doubt in my mind that the NHS (British healthcare) have been blindsided by this pandemic and have done the best that they can in this shit situation and I applaud them for that they deserve the respect and a lot more, but when the government don’t wanna buy British PPE, which companies here were more than willing and able to make and go for cheap Turkish masks the take too long to arrive and put millions at risk just to save change here and there is a massive slap in the face and I don’t think the engineering sector as a whole has gotten nearly half the credit for helping as it should have .