Scared and exposed: Rise in virus cases among China’s medics

Working long, intense hours, Liu was one of the first healthcare workers to come to the front line to fight the coronavirus outbreak that has killed at least 1,770 people and infected 70,548 others in mainland China.

For days, she helped dispense medicine and administer intravenous therapy to infected patients at a crowded hospital in Wuhan, the epicentre of the epidemic.

Then on January 26, just three days after Wuhan was placed under a lockdown, she developed a dry cough and started to get a fever.

Liu could not remember exactly how and when she might have contracted the virus. But by the time she had received her test results, her body temperature had been hovering above 38.5 degrees Celsius (101.3 Fahrenheit) for over four days.

“When I was admitted to the hospital, a colleague of mine burst into tears and said she was so scared and so tired,” said Liu, who asked Al Jazeera to identify her only by her last name.