Haliza

Age at interview: 56

Brief Outline:

Gender: Female

Ethnicity: Malaysian

Background: Haliza is 56 years old and is Malaysian. She is married, with children, and works as a journalist. 

At the start of the pandemic Haliza travelled to Germany for work purposes. She felt like the pandemic was far away and would not come to Europe.

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Haliza first heard about Covid in January 2020. At the time, she felt like the virus would not spread outside of South-East Asia. However, as the virus started to spread she became very worried. Haliza’s main concern was catching the virus while traveling. She says that she was extra risk given that she often travels for her work as a journalist. 

Haliza remembers traveling to Germany in March 2020. She says that only half of the passengers were wearing masks. Once she arrived in Germany, things escalated. People started panic buying domestic supplies. However, Haliza still felt like the virus was far away from her and did not think that it would spread to Europe. 

When Haliza caught Covid in Autumn 2020, her husband caught it as well. They needed bedrest for a few days and felt too weak even to go into the kitchen to eat something. She did not tell her family in Malaysia because her mum was not well and they were worried about her. 

More recently, Haliza has travelled to Malaysia. She says that the Covid situation seems a bit better in Malaysia. When she came to the UK she quarantined for two weeks at home.

Haliza, a frequent traveller, was familiar with Asian countries where it is normal to wear a mask to protect others.

In Asia a lot of people wearing masks if they’re not well, if they go somewhere, because of pollution or, this and, that’s normal, you know. I don’t particularly have mask before that but it’s something that I’ve seen and that I’ve, you know when travel to the other side, to that side of the world. So, yes. And I, you know, read about and know about SARS and bird flu, all that so it is, it is some of them airborne so, yes.

Haliza’s family caught Covid in October 2020. They all experienced different symptoms.

So my husband’s positive, my son’s positive too, yeah. But they, but what is really strange, what we had, I lost taste for about ten days. I couldn’t taste anything, couldn’t, didn’t eat very much. My husband was more achy, and tired. Maybe he swims everyday so maybe it’s like affected him, on his body. My son had sore throat, and very tired but maybe just a few days. So they both didn’t really, you know, had a funny taste, as it lost maybe one day or two, but otherwise, different from me. My daughter was fine, her housemates was fine. But two weeks later she’s positive.

Haliza had Covid in October 2020. She lost her appetite and ate just a slice of toast each day.

There’s not too much coughing, some coughing but very, very tired, you know, sleeping and no energy even to go downstairs to make a drink. I, yeah, no energy and lost appetite, didn’t eat very much. It’s, I probably, for many, many days, I probably had a slice of toast a day.