An Oral History of the COVID-19 Crisis: 'An uncharted territory of travelling through an unperceived threat'
FirstpostThis account is part of Firstpost’s Oral History Project of the COVID-19 Crisis in India. The Oral History Project aims to be an ongoing compendium of individual experiences of the pandemic, with a focus on one significant day in our respondents’ lives during this time. I waited, masking my slight anxiety at the makeshift laboratory till the person behind the glass barricade in full PPE regalia put on an extra mask and a head and face cover and extended his gloved hands through two hand holes asking me to come closer for him to place a small thin cotton-tipped stick into my nose and do the same with my throat with another such stick. My fate now lay behind reams of details on paper and computers, all recorded and noted, attached to two tiny vials of bodily fluid collected, sealed and stored away by careful and extra cautious hands.