Dai Shimeng. (Photo: Liu Yu)

"I was deeply afraid after I knew that I couldn't go back to my home town to have a Spring Festival with my family and would stay in Wuhan to fight the COVID-19," said Dai Shimeng, a frontline Wuhan nurse in her twenties. "At that time, my colleagues had no obvious symptoms when diagnosed positive for the disease."

Dai Shimeng in protective clothes. (Photo provided by Dai Shimeng)

Dai is a sweet, direct and talkative girl. Her uncle surnamed Jia is my friend, also a photographer based in the epicenter Wuhan.

"She shared her concern with me on the phone first," said Jia. 

Medics help each other sign names on their protective clothes for recognition.(Photo: Liu Yu)

"You work and live in Wuhan, so you and the city were combined as a shared community against the outbreak. More importantly, as a nurse, your duty is to save people," Jia said. 

"Despite fear of the epidemic, you should gather courage to confront it," Jia encouraged his little niece.

Dai felt soothed when she joined the intense aid operation at Wuhan Red Cross Hospital, which was one of the hospitals designated to treat COVID-19 patients.

In order to appreciate our efforts, an old female patient took a picture of me when I snagged my protective clothes and put another one on. (Photo provided by Dai Shimeng)

"In the beginning we often worked nearly 10 hours a day and the shift was gradually reduced to four hours because of the increasing number of medics sent from outside Wuhan," said Dai.

She clearly remembered when she stumbled to move an oxygen tank that is taller than her in a night shift.

We (Dai is in the middle) teach a COVID-19 patient with mental deficiency how to wash hands and wear masks correctly and let him join our activities to help him recover. (Photo provided by Dai Shimeng)

Wuhan Red Cross Hospital, where Dai worked during the outbreak, transfers the COVID-19 patient. (Photo: Liu Yu)

"I felt short of breath the first time I was fully armed with the badly-ventilated protective suit." "It's risky to get infected when tending patients because of the inadequate masks that are key to preventing droplet spread," said Dai.

Dai Shimeng in protective clothes. (Photo provided by Dai Shimeng)

Yet Dai never told her family all the hardships she had endured until her task would end.

"My mom panicked when I told her I would have a two-week holiday (Editor: because fourteen days alternatively mean the quarantine time during the outbreak). "I told her my frontline task and let parents not to worry," said Dai.

Dai Shimeng. (Photo: Liu Yu)

Her mother was very proud of her daughter's bravery to battle the outbreak and shared it on her WeChat social media platform.

Screenshot of What Dai's mother shared in her WeChat Moments, praising her daughter's bravery.

"Despite tiredness, I think they deserve this and I will regret it if I didn't come to the frontline to experience all this. I also learned a lot from experts I met there and I hope that they can come back home safely and all the patients will recover," the girl said.

"Don't be afraid, and just do it! Love can solve many problems, really, really, really," she said.

"It pains me to see my niece's face had swelled so much," said Jia, looking at the photos I took.

Dai Shimeng. (Photo provided by Dai Shimeng)

Dai Shimeng(left). (Photo provided by Dai Shimeng)

All the frontline medics in Wuhan have similar experiences as Dai. The day Wuhan reported zero new confirmed cases, I went to Tianhe Airport to take photos of medics leaving the city and a crowd seeing them off.

Liu Jie, party chief of Wuchang District in Wuhan, seeing off 145 medics from Jilin Province in North East China. (Photo: Liu Yu)

Wuhan residents quarantined at home bid farewell to medics sent from Zhejiang Province in East China.

Liu Yu is a photo journalist from Xinhua News Agency and the China Photographers Association 

(Compiled by Bai Yuanqi)