Ipswich Town midfielder Emyr Huws has urged everyone to support the ‘stay at home, protect the NHS, save lives’ campaign as the UK combats the coronavirus outbreak.

The 26-year-old’s father Rhys has been a GP in south Wales for 35 years, while mother Anita and girlfriend Meg also work for the NHS.

He says he fully supports the Government’s decision to put the country in virtual lockdown for the next three weeks and says too many people ‘just don’t get it’ after watching pictures of the public flocking to beaches and parks over the weekend.

“I watched the TV and it doesn’t paint a good picture for the country when you see that,” he says. “People think it’s all hunky-dory but it isn’t. This isn’t a game we are playing.

“It needed the Government to do what they’ve done now with the lockdown. I think they tried to do it nicely and not panic people but it went the other way. Something had to be done.

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“All we have to do is sit on a sofa at home. That is our job. The job of the NHS is to try and saves lives in what must be the biggest health challenge the country has seen in a generation.

“People have got to start taking note because unbeknown to them they are going out there and spreading the virus and that is already putting massive pressure on the NHS.

“My dad is coming into contact every day with people who may have the virus and it’s really worrying for me because I don’t think he’s got the right protective equipment that he should have.

“The number of people he is going to see is only going to increase and that will put him at greater risk because he won’t have that supply of protective equipment to use. There is just not enough of it.

“At the moment all I want to do is sit at home and hide but my dad and all the other NHS workers don’t have that option. They are right in the firing line.

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“It’s not just them. The care workers, people working in shops, delivery drivers. Fair play to them as well.

“It’s going to be carnage in the NHS if people don’t change their ways. I’ve watched the stories from Italy where doctors are having to make decisions on who goes on a ventilator based on the chances of them surviving and what age they are. That’s terrible and we are on the same trajectory as Italy.

“It might be inconvenient for people to sit at home all day but it will be nothing compared to the chaotic environments in hospitals where the NHS are trying to deal with that chaos and save lives. People need to wake up to that fact and start doing something about it – now.”