Covid heroes 2020: From Sir Captain Tom Moore to Marcus Rashford, the faces that have inspired us

It’s been a tough year, to say the least. When news of a virus outbreak in Wuhan percolated in early January, few could have predicted the seismic impact it would have on all of our lives. But here we are, 12 months later, bringing 2020 to a close with a new variant of Covid-19 that spreads faster than the first and with no certainty as to when the coronavirus pandemic will come to an end.

But that’s not to say there isn’t light at the end of the tunnel. The UK rollout of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine has begun, for starters, and hundreds of thousands of people in the UK are thought to have already had their first dose. Beyond that, 2020 has been a year where local communities have come together to support one another like no other. At a local level, we’ve seen people doing food shopping for vulnerable neighbours, ringing on one another’s doorbells to combat loneliness, and who could forget when, during the first nationwide lockdown, Britons gathered on their doorsteps to “clap for their carers”?

Through all of this, there have been some individual contributions that stand out. Consider Sir Captain Tom Moore, who raised more than £30m for NHS Charities Together after walking laps around his garden, and Marcus Rashford, who forced a government U-turn on providing free school meal vouchers. Elsewhere, there have been families whose lives have been ravaged by the virus, like Mal and Sue Martin, and have spoken out about their own experiences as a way of warning others of the impact that Covid-19 can have.

As the year comes to end, we’ve rounded up the people whose contributions have made a major difference to our experience of the pandemic.  

No one could have predicted just how much of an impact it would have when Tom Moore vowed to raise money for NHS Charities Together by walking 100 laps around his garden before his 100th birthday, least of all Tom Moore.

He had initially set himself a target of raising £1,000, but as news spread about his campaign, Sir Tom quickly became a household name.

The centenarian has since been knighted for his fundraising efforts, won numerous awards, and released an autobiography that quickly became a Sunday Times No 1 bestseller.

But the key to Sir Captain Tom Moore’s popularity is his humility. The former World War Two veteran has been nothing but gracious and appreciative in public interviews. Ahead of being knighted by the Queen at Windsor Castle, he tweeted: “I could never have imagined this would happen to me. It is such a huge honour and I am very much looking forward to meeting Her Majesty The Queen. It is going to be the most special of days for me.”

The Manchester United footballer has had quite the year. Aside from being his club’s top scorer in all of their competitions this season, Rashford has become a household name for reasons that have nothing to do with football.

In March, the 23-year-old started working with the charity FareShare, which fights hunger and food waste in the UK, and supported its campaigns on free school meals. In June, he wrote an open letter to MPs, urging them to reconsider their decision to end free school meal vouchers.

Rashford’s plea went viral and subsequently prompted the government to backtrack on its food policies for children and provide £170m extra funding for free meals for disadvantaged children during the festive season.

Rashford received an MBE in October and recently received an “Expert Panel Special Award” at the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year.

The Manchester United star has vowed to continue campaigning to end child food poverty and, to date, his petition calling for such has acquired more than one million signatures.

Already a well-known name among fitness fans, Joe Wicks’ fame reached new heights during the first nationwide lockdown thanks to his daily online PE lessons, which he launched on YouTube as a way of keeping children and families fit while everyone stayed at home.

Thousands of people around the UK tuned in to take part in Wicks’ classes, with one achieving a Guinness World Record as nearly a million people tuning in live to watch.

The personal trainer, known as The Body Coach, raised £580,000 for the NHS through his sessions, which ran until July and was subsequently made an MBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours.

Wicks told PA news agency that he “can’t quite believe” he’s been made an MBE.

“I'm so proud that I've done something which helps so many people,” he said. "To all the children, the parents, the dinner ladies, the school teachers, everybody who took part in any one of my workouts, thank you for being there.”

Sir Tom was not the only centenarian to raise money for coronavirus relief this year.

Inspired by the former world war two veteran, Dabirul Islam Choudhury, from St Albans, also set himself the challenge of walking 100 laps of his garden while he was fasting for Ramadan.

Mr Choudhury raised more than £420,000 for the Ramadan Family Commitment Covid-19 crisis initiative, which is run by British-Bangladeshi television broadcaster Channel S and supports those in impoverished communities in Bangladesh and more than 50 other countries.

He was made an OBE in October in the Queen’s Birthday Honours. “I feel proud they have honoured me for the efforts I have done,” Mr Choudhury said of receiving the honour. “I thank everybody from the bottom of my heart.”

Annemarie Plas created Clap for Carers, the nationwide event that saw people standing on their doorsteps every Thursday evening to applaud the UK’s care workers for their efforts during the pandemic.

Ms Plas, 36, lives in South London. She started the movement in April as a way to unite neighbours and local communities while also celebrating NHS staff.

However, in May, Ms Plas announced that she would be ending Clap for Carers in fear that it became “too political”.

"To have the most impact I think it is good to stop it at its peak,” she told PA at the time.

"Without getting too political, I share some of the opinions that some people have about it becoming politicised.

"I think the narrative is starting to change and I don't want the clap to be negative."

Ms Plas continued: “For everybody who wants to continue I think they should, but for me I think it's good to see how we can see that positivity delivered to the next level, which can be an annual moment and also to embrace the community still at 8pm.

Mal Martin, 58, was told he had “almost zero” chances of surviving after he contracted Covid-19 in April. His wife, Sue, spoke to The Independent at the time, revealing that the doctors were so certain Mal was going to die that they allowed her and her two children 10 minutes with him to say goodbye.

The 49-year-old said: "All three of us stood around his bed. My children said their goodbyes to their dad who, just a few short weeks ago was absolutely fine. I never thought I could feel this much pain."

Mr Martin was placed on a ventilator for 61 days and put into an induced coma. However, he is now in recovery and him and Sue have spoken to several media outlets about their experience.

"I've lost vision in my right eye which I'll never get back and I've had amputations on my hands - I've lost my thumb from on my one hand and I've lost a forefinger and a half a finger and my thumb is going to come off my right hand," he told the BBC last week.

Mr Martin added that doctors have described his recovery as a “miracle” and that he is keen to speak out about his experience to warn others of the impact that Covid-19 can have.

"I suppose the biggest wish is for people to understand I was healthy,” he said.

"It astounds me really that there's so many people losing their lives, there's so many people in the same position I'm in and in worse positions than I'm in and people are still not taking heed and not understanding.

"I think once somebody gets it in their family, then it really hits home and it's certainly hitting my family."

The Bafta-winning filmmaker Hassan Akkad signed up to work on a Covid-19 ward during the pandemic and went viral after sharing a video in which he protested at the exclusion of cleaners and porters from the NHS bereavement scheme.

The bereavement scheme was initially launched in April for health workers in the NHS and independent health and care sector. It offers support to the families of those who die as a result of contracting coronavirus.

Within hours of Akkad sharing his video on Twitter on 20 May, Priti Patel, the home secretary, extended the scheme to all NHS staff in a U-turn for the government.

Akkad also played a key role in helping campaigners force Downing Street into a second U-turn on the £624-a-year healthcare surcharge on migrants working in the NHS.

The Cornwall-based 32-year-old created cards that could be easily posted through neighbours’ letterboxes as a way of indicating that you’re able to support them.

At the start of the pandemic in March, Becky Wass, a lecturer at Falmouth University, decided to create a postcard to help people who were self-isolating.

“Hello! If you are self-isolating, I can help,” the cards read, with blank spaces for people to include a name, address, phone number and possible things that they could help with, such as “picking up shopping” and “a friendly phone call”.

Ms Wass shared the idea on Facebook with the hashtag #viralkindnes and it subsequently went viral.

"I’ve been feeling pretty helpless watching the news. Maybe you have too?” she wrote. “I wanted to do something about it, so I’ve made a postcard that I’ll be posting to my older neighbours as this progresses (after washing my hands!)

"If just one person feels less lonely or isolated when faced with this pandemic, then I’ll feel better about it (I hope!)."

Ms Wass told the BBC she came up with the idea after discussing ways to help with her husband. "Because fear has spread so quickly, its really important to try to spread kindness," she explained.

"I do think in times like this everybody wants to do something to help, and this postcard just makes that a little bit easier."

To date, Ms Wass’ Facebook post has been liked more than 8,900 times.

Charandeep Singh is deputy chief executive of the Scottish Chambers of Commerce. Inspired by Sikh values of community service, he launched the initiative Sikh Foodbank, which delivers food parcels to those in need.  

The organisation delivers grocery packs and cooked meals and provides a volunteer shopping service for those self-isolating in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee and Aberdeen who may not be able to receive food another way.

During the pandemic, it went from handing out 100 food parcels a week to serving more than 100,000 meals to families in need.

Another person inspired by Sir Tom’s fundraising was six-year-old Frank Mills, who has spina bifida, which is is when a baby's spine and spinal cord do not develop properly in the womb, causing a gap in the spine.

Keen to raise money for NHS Charities Together, Frank set out to walk 10 metres every day with his frame, despite the fact that he only started walking 18 months ago.

“I have been inspired to walk 10 metres outside my house, with my walking frame, by Captain Tom Moore,” reads his JustGiving page.

“I am hugely grateful to the NHS for all that they have done, and do for me, my family and our nation. I have spina bifida so walking is not that easy for me.”

To date, Frank has raised more than £300,000 via JustGiving. He initially pledged to raise £99.