Online memorial launched to commemorate Covid-19 deaths
There are more than 22,000 people who are known to have succumbed to the Covid-19 pandemic so far, and the number is likely to continue to grow as time passes.
To commemorate these deaths, a group of volunteers has set up an online memorial today for loved ones to share their memories of the deceased.
“While some of the memorials are...
There are more than 22,000 people who are known to have succumbed to the Covid-19 pandemic so far, and the number is likely to continue to grow as time passes.
To commemorate these deaths, a group of volunteers has set up an online memorial today for loved ones to share their memories of the deceased.
“While some of the memorials are from information gathered through news reports and public social media postings, since Aug 31, the public has been invited to share their own memories to create their own memorials for loved ones lost.
“In this way, the memorial website is a platform for us to remember how the ones we lost have touched our lives, and to share our love for them with others. The stories speak for themselves, showing the (22,000) and more lives lost are not just numbers,” the group said in a statement last night.
The website Covid-19 Memorial Malaysia is launched at 10am today. According to the statement, it contains about 300 memorials at launch.
In addition to inviting people to create online memorials for the loved ones they have lost to Covid-19, the group has also chosen the 19th day of each month as a day of remembrance.
“We invite Malaysians to join us to share stories of their loved ones on social media on that day, too, with the hashtag #c19memorialmy and mention us at @c19memorialmy on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
“We hope the memorial is a contribution towards eternal remembrance of the lives lost to the Covid-19 pandemic, so each person is not a number but a loving memory,” the group said.
To ensure the website is accessible to as many people as possible, the volunteers also collaborated with the disability rights group Bolehspace to ensure the website’s design is dyslexia-friendly, colourblind friendly, and easy to use for the visually impaired.
It only provides resources for mental health and grieving, as well as how to get assistance to cope with the pandemic.
The website was created by a group of 22 volunteers who have never met in real life.
The project was initiated when Malaysiakini journalist Aidila Razak put out a call on Twitter for collaborators to work on a project to commemorate people who have died of Covid-19.
This was on Aug 6. At that point, Malaysia had just passed the grim milestone of 10,000 Covid-19 deaths a day earlier.
More than a dozen people from various fields and expertise have signed up by the time the group held its first online discussion on Aug 10.
According to data released by the Health Ministry, there are 22,009 deaths confirmed to have been caused by Covid-19 so far.
The first was a 34-year-old male in Johor, who tested positive for the disease on March 12, 2020, and succumbed to the infection five days later on March 17, 2020.
The most recent deaths identified so far were of five people who died yesterday - a 67-year-old female in Johor and another in Perak, a 76-year-old male in Perak, a 66-year-old female in Perak, and a 68-year-old male in Selangor.
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