Hassan Akkad

Coronavirus

Following the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK, he started working as a cleaner for the NHS at Whipps Cross Hospital in East London. While working in the hospital, he took photos of his colleagues, which were published on the Politico website.

Akkad stated that "everyone [he worked with] felt completely betrayed, [and] stabbed in the back" in response to the government announcing that NHS cleaners and porters wouldn't be included in an NHS bereavement scheme if they die due to coronavirus, and that immigrant NHS workers would still have to pay a £400 immigration health surcharge. Following this video, the government made a U-turn, and included these workers in the bereavement scheme. The Observer argued that this video was "directly instrumental in another of the prime minister’s mumbled U-turns the following day",

Personal life He was engaged to a Syrian woman he met in the UK, who was there as a student and whose home in Damascus was bombed. They have since split up. His family also left Syria: as of 2020, his parents live in the UAE, and his brother works for the World Food Programme in Yemen.