Journalist Duy Hieu - Working on the epidemic, journalists are forced to commit

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I was a little scared at that time. I was scared that I wouldn't be able to go back to my normal life.

Now, Ho Chi Minh City has changed a lot, it has become a bustling city again, always lit up day or night.

What I see is the affection people have for each other.

Old, abandoned apartment buildings were converted into thousands of hospital rooms. That time, I worked at a field hospital in District 12. At night, I saw convoys of 45-seat vehicles carrying patients wearing protective clothing, from adults to children.

I just felt very clearly, the epidemic is very close to me.

I am a local reporter so I chose to stay and work. Moreover, I feel that this epidemic is a historical event. As a journalist, I think it is my responsibility to record this moment.

However, at that time, I did not fully understand the COVID-19 epidemic, what the symptoms were, and how it spread. But I just thought that at most I would get sick and become seriously ill, but I never thought of the worst-case scenario. In my mind, all I could think about was: I will translate. I will tell stories. I will make reports.

I always believe that I will overcome this pandemic. Once I am in it, I have to overcome it to continue telling the story during and after the pandemic.

Next is the Intensive Care Unit - the last line to receive patients with serious conditions. Here, most of the patients are in deep coma. I will monitor them for a long time.

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Of all the reports I've done, the story about the volunteer burial team for people who died from COVID-19 is probably the topic I remember the most. Because I find it sad.

Normally, when someone dies, they have a funeral, with drums and trumpets, with children and relatives. But during the pandemic, they die with nothing, not even a coffin. They are simply given a ceremony and then put in a plastic bag to wrap it up.

To me, Vietnamese funeral culture represents goodness and sacredness. But during the pandemic, the burial ritual of the deceased is simple and quiet. When they return, they are just an urn of ashes.

The first time I joined the funeral volunteer team, I heard a woman crying. Her father had died in the middle of the house.

The medical staff tried to convince her not to try anymore. Because he had been dead for hours. But she kept crying and hugging him. She kept telling the medical staff: Do something.

Another time, I was working in a field hospital. I met her. She complained of difficulty breathing and felt a bit tired, so she went to the emergency room. I followed her and the medical staff. After a while, she was transferred, but I still thought it was just a normal emergency. Because almost everyone in the hospital was healthy.

After the article was published, her son called and said she had passed away. He didn't know where she was so he wanted me to ask the hospital and get the last pictures of his mother.

When I work, I do it with a very simple mindset: Observe events happening in a subject. But I cannot know that those are also the last moments of a person.

When I arrived, the two sons of the family came out to greet me. Their father had passed away that morning. He was lying in a room, waiting for the funeral staff to come in to perform the ceremony, wrap the body, and move it. While the funeral staff was performing the ceremony, I saw that my grandmother did not come in but just sat in the living room. When I asked, I learned that both of them had suffered a stroke, were in poor health, and could not walk.

At that moment, I started to feel: Two old people, how will they part? I decided to capture this moment.

I waited outside the door, waiting for the moment he passed her. Suddenly she turned her face to the wall. She covered her face and turned away.

At that time, I thought, the epidemic was something so terrible that even when people were separated by life and death, they still could not bear to face it.

It was a moment that summed up the COVID-19 pandemic for me: Extreme.

When volunteers arrive at the patient’s home for burial, they must wrap the body in 2-3 layers of very thick plastic. Each layer must be tied very tightly.

The rustling sound echoed clearly in a space where everyone stood around, silently watching, including me.

It's a little hard to accept.

I have a different feeling. At the end of 2021, the city began to return to normal. But when I passed by the places I used to go with the burial team, that image reminded me.

Until now, when I go with someone through an old place, I still unconsciously tell: During the epidemic, I came here to bury someone, or this is the place I saw someone die from COVID-19,...

From the end of 2021 to the middle of 2022, I was delayed. Living in this city, I was still afraid that somewhere, in places I couldn't observe, in alleys or old apartment buildings, there were still separations like that.

Because I was on the main road, I couldn't see what was happening deep inside the alleys.

In terms of professionalism, I have additional skills in finding topics, interviewing people, and gathering information quickly in harsh conditions.

As a person, I think this is an experience that I want to forget but can't. I accept that I will remember these memories forever.

Before the pandemic, I could not imagine that I would have to witness bodies wrapped in plastic, or groups of people silently carrying a deceased person away. I could not imagine that I would have to face such scenes.

But when faced too many times, I think, I become more callous.

Publication date: 6/14/2025
Production organization: Hong Minh
Content: Thi Uyen
Image: The Dai
Cinematography: Minh Cong
Presented by: Ta Lu