“I did not dare to have video calls with my mum because this place looks different from where I live in Nanjing,” said the nurse, who used the pseudonym Jiaying in a report by Jiangsu Broadcasting Corporation on Monday.

“I realised in the phone call that she had a stuffy nose, and she later told me she had a mild fever for several days. I asked where she was, and she said she was in a fangcang,” Jiaying said, referring to the name used to describe China’s makeshift hospitals for treating Covid-19 patients.

She explained that, once she found out her parents were in a fangcang she “had to tell my mother the truth”.

“I wanted to say to her, ‘you are not alone, I am here too.’”

Jiaying was able to briefly meet her father last Saturday, but, unfortunately, could not have a reunion with her mother because the woman continued to show symptoms and was transferred to a formal hospital.

“It’s all right Dad. You will be fine after some time in isolation and treatment here,” Jiaying told her father during the reunion.

They did not meet earlier because Jiaying was unrecognisable in her hazmat suit, and she was working in a different section of the hospital, which had 13,000 beds.

Jiaying is one of the over 38,000 medical workers from 15 provinces across China transferred to Shanghai as China mobilised resources to fight its worst Covid-19 outbreak, driven by the Omicron variant, since Wuhan two years ago.

The number of daily new cases in Shanghai started dropping this week, with over 17,000 new infections reported on Thursday.

Online, web users called it “the most touching of white lies” and expressed sympathy for a family that was trying to make each other feel better amid challenging circumstances.

“The past couple of years have been tough for medical workers. I see their love behind those lies. It is heart-warming to see the daughter and father arm in arm,” one user commented on WeChat.