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Joshua Irwandi’s award-winning photo shows the polarization of COVID-19
Titled “The Human Cost of COVID-19”, Joshua Irwandi’s photograph is a tribute to the medical workers risking their lives to save others.
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Frontline duty: Photographer Joshua Irwandi said his award-winning photo was meant to draw attention to the hard work done by medical workers on the front lines of the world’s fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. (JP/Illustration by Hengky Wijaya)
F
or photographer Joshua Irwandi, a photograph is more than simply aesthetics. His award-winning photograph “The Human Cost of COVID-19” shows the body of a suspected coronavirus victim wrapped in yellow plastic lying in a hospital bed. The image, he said, was supposed to represent the horror of the virus, the pressure it put on medical workers and the changes to how the deceased were handled.
The picture has won second place in the 2021 World Press Photo Awards in the General News category. It was also recently named a finalist for the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography.
Originally published in August 2020 as part of the National Geographic Society Emergency Fund grant, the photograph was not planned. Joshua encountered the scene while he was embedded with doctors and nurses in a COVID-19 ward and trying to document their work.
“I wanted to show the work of the medical force fighting the pandemic,” the 30-year-old photographer said. “From the beginning to now, they risk their lives each day to protect us.”
The photo was taken at the beginning of the pandemic, as Indonesia was in the early stages of learning how to deal with the virus. With late test results, a lack of protective equipment for medical workers and stigma surrounding many medical professionals treating COVID-19 patients, the country was in a state of emergency. At one point, it had among the highest number of health worker deaths by country.
“It was complete chaos at the beginning of the pandemic,” Joshua said. “We decided to wake up late to the greatest medical crisis in modern Indonesian history.”
Joshua felt it was necessary to capture the chaos and present it to the public, who he thought might not have been aware of what was going on inside hospital wards. “It needed to be documented because the reality for most doctors, nurses, families of patients and victims and myself as a photojournalist was vastly different to what the public might be seeing on a daily basis,” he said. “We entered a world relatively unknown to us then.”
