COVID-19: Miss England Bhasha Mukherjee returns to work as doctor in UK

Miss England 2019 Bhasha Mukherjee has returned to the UK to resume her medical practise in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

Mukherjee, a doctor by profession who spent her childhood in Kolkata, was crowned Miss England in August 2019 and since then she has been travelling for humanitarian work.

In December, she represented England at the Miss World 2019 pageant.

But she has now decided to temporarily step back from humanitarian activities as she returned to the UK to continue her work as a doctor.

"It wasn't a tough decision. I've been to Africa, Turkey, and India was the first of the Asian countries I was going to travel to.

"After India, I had several other countries that had to be cut short because of obviously the coronavirus. I knew the best place for me would be back at the hospital," Mukherjee told Fox News.

UK is one of the countries that have been worst-hit by the coronavirus pandemic, which originated in China and has claimed the lives of over 80,000 people worldwide.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been diagnosed with COVID-19 and he was recently taken to intensive care after his condition worsened. He is said to be stable and in good spirits.

Talking to CNN, Mukherjee said she made the decision to go back after she saw the news about her country reeling from the health crisis.

She received many messages from former colleagues at her old hospital, the Pilgrim Hospital in Boston, eastern England, narrating how hard the situation was for them.

Mukherjee said it felt wrong to her to keep wearing the crown while her countrymen were dying due to the pandemic.

When you are doing all this humanitarian work abroad, you're still expected to put the crown on, get ready... look pretty. I wanted to come back home. I wanted to come and go straight to work.

"I felt a sense of this is what I'd got this degree for and what better time to be part of this particular sector than now. It was incredible the way the whole world was celebrating all key workers, and I wanted to be one of those, and I knew I could help, she said.

Post her arrival in the UK, the Miss England is now self quarantining for one or two weeks.