Last modified on Sat 9 Jan 2021 05.40 EST In a private room by the locked entrance of the intensive care unit, Dilip Sharan is sitting up in bed, a plate of stew in front of him. He navigates his spoon around the breathing tube keeping him alive, every mouthful soundtracked by a discordant symphony of beeps and bongs from multiple monitors keeping tabs on his vital organs. It is his fifth day in the last chance saloon of Covid care. He gasps for air, barely able to speak. Sharan, 53, seems shockingly young to be so ill with coronavirus. But he is far from an anomaly in the ICU at Milton Keynes University hospital, where lunchtime passes almost unnoticed by patients being fed through tubes.