A villa dela Cruz, gets ready for another shift.

The 60 year olds immigrant from Mexico puts on her face, mask and gown as she prepares to clean the rooms of patients who have Cove in 19.

De la Cruz was assigned to the covert ward at the start of the Pandemic in March.

She told Reuters at her home in the Chicago suburb that she took up the task after many refused because she felt it was her duty.

E feel good working there.

I'm happy serving the sick because I know I am doing something good, and that fills me with pride, knowing that I'm doing something good for the sick.

For the hospital for the country, The work of doctors, nurses and other health care professionals has been rightly championed during the pandemic, which people across the globe taking to their balconies at night to applaud medical workers.

Yet their ability to work has relied on a less visible category of frontline staff, janitors and cleaners like dela Cruz, who also risk infection and death but receive far fewer accolades.

De la Cruz has been laboring seven days a week, sometimes for weeks on end.

And since the outbreak began, the only time she took more than the occasional day off was in July, when she herself was infected with the virus.

Ah, month later, she returned and carried on her responsibilities of disinfecting the coronavirus contaminated areas of the hospital and keeping patients rooms clean.

Seeing a sick person and not being able to help is very painful.

If I were able to, I would if my hands could cure these people, I would.

It hurts me so much, not being able to help them, but I can be there serving them and cleaning their room.

De la Cruz, who has lived in the U.

S for three decades, says she keeps the vase filled with fresh flowers at all times as an offering to God as she prays for an end to the pandemic.