I believe we can prevent heart attack. We can put in place strategies to reduce risk. We can literally plan to change your future. I call it Healthy Heart Network. Greetings and hello to everyone on this Tuesday night, 21st of April. I'm delighted you're able to join me, if you by any chance miss this presentation, you will, of course, be able to catch up with it later on. We will rerun it and give you the chance to do that. It seems a little bit odd to be thinking about cardiovascular issues in the midst of this COVID challenge, this COVID crisis, however, it is really important to remember the importance of maintenance of other aspects of your health, and from a statistical point of view, although this virus has been truly devastating and it's really impacted so many lives both directly through illness, but now indirectly through work, loss of work, income, impact on the economy. It's just been devastating.
But what we have to remember is that the world keeps turning to me and other issues keep going on. What I really want to underline for people and let people be aware of is that, in amongst all this difficulty, good heart health is really important. So please continue to look after yourself. Be careful about the virus, of course, there's no question about that. Please don't neglect things like chest pain. Don't neglect palpitations. I know in the accident and emergency department in the hospital where I work, someone sat on their chest pain for several days because they were concerned about COVID-19. The consequence is that that person had a heart attack that was beyond any recovery or help.
So this virus has had an absolutely terrible impact on us from a society point of view. It's a terrible thing that we don't want to be caught with that infection and the social isolation and the care we're taking with hand-washing and so forth is so important. But please don't forget the importance of your other health issues. And please remember, if things change, you still need to get those checked out. The fact that that virus is present doesn't mean you can put off chest pain, doesn't mean you can put off shortness of breath, and it doesn't mean you can neglect your health until we're through the crisis.