It’s not easy being in the frontlines of a global pandemic. While most of us are sitting comfortably at home, staying clear of the virus outside, our frontliners risk their lives every day, braving through hot weather, fatigue, and just stubborn Malaysians, just to ensure that we are well protected.
Recently, a Twitter user by the name of Farihin shared his experience being a part of the COVID-19 sampling team during one of the mass sampling rounds at Wisma Hock Ann in Kuala Lumpur.
As they had previously encountered difficult tenants, they first had to go to the residents’ homes one by one to conduct home surveillance and sampling.
Since most of the team members were fasting, some of them were dehydrated, while there were those who fainted and even vomited.
They divided themselves into two teams to cover the 14-storey high housing complex, as one floor has 10 units.
The whole ordeal proved to be challenging as the team had to face 4 hours of unhygienic surroundings and all kinds of odours coming from the complex.
Not to mention, getting the residents to come out of their houses to perform the sampling was also difficult as some residents were just too stubborn. Some gave ridiculous excuses such as the lift wasn’t working, just to avoid going down to do the sampling.
At the end of it, one of their teammates could not continue with the sampling activity and it was left to him and one other teammate who remained till the end of the session.
As a reminder, Farihin wrote that the Ministry of Health (MOH) is committed to fighting COVID-19 and that we have not won the battle just yet. It is up to us to win this by being a responsible citizen and giving our full cooperation to the frontliners.
Farihin’s tweets have gone viral with netizens showing their support for the team and thanking them for their service.
Let’s all remember the sacrifices these frontliners had to go through just to keep us safe and do our part as a society in fighting this war with them. Together, we are stronger!
By: Siti Farhana Sheikh Yahya
