Author Gerald Flynn Illustrator Farid Nad

In March 2020, life insurance salesperson Juno Simorangkir was trying not to think about the possibility of dying. 

He tested positive for COVID-19 on 13 March, after several days of fever, body aches and loss of smell and taste. He soon had to stop working, and like much of the world, he was stricken by panic.

But unlike most people who have contracted and survived COVID-19, Simorangkir has not fully recovered. Four visits to two separate specialists saw him hospitalised for nine days before winding up in a state-run quarantine centre in Jakarta, where he spent a month developing new symptoms.

Members only

Log in or

Join New Naratif as a member to continue reading

We are independent, ad-free and pro-democracy. Our operations are member-funded. Membership starts from just US$5/month! Alternatively, write to sponsorship@newnaratif.com to request a free sponsored membership. As a member, you are supporting fair payment of freelancers, and a movement for democracy and transnational community building in Southeast Asia.

BECOME A MEMBER

Gerald Flynn is a freelance journalist based in Cambodia where he covers social, political and environmental issues with bylines in VOD, Mongabay, The Third Pole and Cambodianess.

Farid (he/dia) is a disabled freelance illustrator and comic artist from Malaysia whose work centres around themes of identity, belonging and hope, exploring the intricacies of intersecting marginalised identities in various settings, speculative or otherwise. Farid has been involved in mental health and disability activism via comics or linguistic analyses and talks. Find his work at farideacs.xyz and Twitter @farideacs.