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Worldwide tribute to healthcare workers

I Amar Hadid call on everyone to join me in holding a worldwide tribute to all those fighting to contain and eliminate the COVID-19 virus that is gripping the world.

TOGETHER WE RISE IN OUR JOURNEY TO OVERCOME THE UNIVERSAL THREAT OF COVID-19.

I want to be part of a universal display of gratitude and esteem for our healthcare workers, essential services workers and medical researchers, and also to acknowledge the victims of the virus and the grieving loved ones left behind.

A DEMONSTRATION OF HOPE FOR A COVID-19 VIRUS FREE WORLD.

Everyone everywhere can take part – spontaneous groups of individuals, as we are already witnessing, and local, national and world leaders, governments, charities, celebrities, influencers, professional organisations, companies. Everyone gathering in the interests of boosting the morale of their individual and international medics and communities.

We would be showing our gratitude to: all those ‘in the front line’ caring for and helping save the lives of infected patients – nurses and doctors, paramedics, essential services, carers, drivers, orderlies, cleaners, all admin and support staff, virus testers, contact tracers – and to the medical researchers and lab technicians striving to develop a cure and an effective way to treat the sufferers. Many of them work directly with the virus every day.

So many of these people are working selflessly, tirelessly and in hope, knowing the risks of having such immediate contact with this highly contagious and so far untreatable scourge. Sadly, some have themselves caught and succumbed to COVID-19, which can strike anyone. Knowing the dangers, they have lost their lives helping others. We would be selling all health workers short if we do not acknowledge the very victims they risk their lives for. Many health workers sadly became victims of the virus while attending to patients.

Who we are doing this for

For those ‘on the frontline’

Our frontline heroes don’t have the privilege of self-quarantining or staying at home. Sadly, despite precautions, some healthcare workers – doctors, nurses and clinicians – have themselves caught and succumbed to the insidious COVID-19 virus, which strikes quickly and silently with little warning. They lost their lives helping others.

For those working ‘behind the scenes’

World Tribute Day also embraces the many heroes working ‘behind the scenes’. This includes the enormous number of medical researchers in many countries striving to discover, develop, test and produce a treatment and cure, epidemiologists and medical historians developing ways to predict the likely trajectory of this novel virus through our communities, public health officials, contact trackers and data analysts working to give us the most effective results for tracing and containing the spread of the virus. It also includes hospital support staff and cleaners, carers in nursing and retirement homes, and the many people working to make a difference and keep the wheels turning every day.

For the victims of the virus

We would be selling our heroes short if we didn’t also share this tribute with the very people they have been risking their lives for – the sufferers and victims of COVID 19, which has proven fatal to many, leaving loved ones grieving. The victims need respectful acknowledgment of their life and death struggle and their families.

The spontaneous, public gratitude and respect worldwide has been immeasurable. We mustn’t let this die down and slip from our memories. World Tribute Day proposes this two-minute tribute be repeated annually on a significant date – 11 March, the day the pandemic was declared.