'I am frightened that if they put me to sleep I won't wake up'

Karren's voice cracks when she recalls the last words she heard from her identical twin sister Paula.

They spoke over the phone in what would be their last conversation after Paula was admitted to Stepping Hill hospital in Stockport four years ago. "They were pretty sure what she had was Covid," she says.

The doctors decided to put her into an induced coma and put her on a ventilator, Karen says. Paula was petrified.

READ MORE: People are dying because their homes are too cold

"She didn't know what was going to happen because... Covid was a new thing. Her last words to me were, 'I am frightened that if they put me to sleep, I won't wake up'."

Paula died, aged 56, six days later. Her heartbreaking story is one of several featured in a short documentary film about the pandemic.

'The Unequal Pandemic', which has been produced by Oldham East and Saddleworth MP Debbie Abrahams, will be screened in Manchester on Saturday (March 23) to mark the fourth anniversary of the Covid lockdown. It focuses on the experiences of three families who lost loved ones to the virus as well as a doctor and Greater Manchester's top public health boss during the pandemic.

The film also features the eminent epidemiologist Professor Sir Michael Marmot who describes the evidence that explains why, contrary to many saying Covid would be the ‘great leveller’, the impact of the virus was unequal. In Greater Manchester, the Covid death rate was 25 per cent higher than in England as a whole.

Across the country, ethnic minority communities were more than three times more likely to die from Covid, while disabled people and those on low incomes were also disproportionately affected. Ahead of the release of the film, Sir Michael said: "A pandemic is a shock