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Coronavirus Means No Welcome-Home Hugs for Indonesian Mom After Hospital Shift

The impact COVID-19 can have on families was poignantly captured in emotional footage taken on March 26 by an Indonesian health-care worker who had to tell her daughter to keep a safe distance away when returning from a shift at a medical facility.

Like the majority of the planet, Indonesia is in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic with health-care workers, in particular, in danger of contracting the virus. A report in the Guardian from the same date this footage was taken, claimed 42 medical staff had already been infected with the virus in the country’s capital, Jakarta. The same report claimed some health-care workers “threatened to go on strike after they were forced to wear raincoats for protection.”

Zahroh Zuliana Azizah, who is based in Salatiga, a city in the Central Java province, is one of Indonesia’s health-care workers and, after working a long shift, her daughter was excited to see her mother arrive at home.

However, given that COVID-19 is highly contagious, Azizah was forced to ask her daughter to stay away. The video was posted to Twitter

Azizah told Storyful, “I just wanted to capture what we are fighting for and when my child asks questions later, I will show her what my friends and I have contributed with our energy and soul.”

She added, “I don’t want to get praise from people, but I want them to appreciate our efforts and sacrifice by staying at home.” A follow-up video shows that her daughter did get a hug in the end, but not until after Azizah had a chance to clean up properly. Credit: Zahroh Zuliana Azizah via Storyful