PODCAST · health

Stolen Goodbyes

by Karen Rice

What do you do when the daily Covid death toll hits 1,820—the UK’s highest—lives reduced to statistics? When loved ones die alone, within days of a cough, last seen walking into an ambulance. No warning. No family. No funeral. No goodbye.That’s why I created Stolen Goodbyes—an urgent act of journalism to restore humanity to those we lost, and give voice to the extraordinary lives behind the numbers.What began as a podcast in lockdown has become something deeper: a living archive, a public record, a safe space—a memorial to those who died, and a vital platform for the Covid-bereaved, a still-grieving, often invisible community met with silence, disbelief, or denial.Each season explores a different facet of pandemic grief: real-time loss, political neglect, love after loss, and the emotional aftershocks. Guests aren’t celebrities—they are spouses, children, partners, and friends. Ordinary people whose loved ones were extraordinary to them and who died durin