Nativescript Vue - function is blocking DOM

Question

I've got a nativescript vue application, and on a certain page I need to fetch some data (every 3 seconds) from an api using axios. The data is returned in xml, and I convert it to json using xml2js. I'm using async/await for both these functions. Something is blocking the UI thread, because whenever this function runs scrolling in my app freezes, along with any animations.

Does anyone know what here is blocking the DOM?

<template>
  //ui code here
</template>

<script>
import { mapGetters } from 'vuex'
import axios from 'axios'
import xml2js  from 'nativescript-xml2js'

export default {
  name: 'component1',
  data () {
    return {
      pending: true,
      error: false,
      results: null,
      refreshInterval: null
    }
  },
  computed: {
    ...mapGetters({
      token: 'main/token'
    })
  },
  methods: {
    async requestData() {

      const headers = {
        Cookie: 'USER_ID=' + this.token
      }
      const url = 'url goes here'
      const parser = new xml2js.Parser({
        async: true
      })

      try {
        const response = await axios.get(url, { headers: headers })

        const newData = await new Promise((resolve, reject) => parser.parseString(response.data, (err, result) => {
          if (err) reject(err)
          else resolve(result)
        }))

        this.results = newData['results']
        this.error = false
        this.pending = false

      } catch (e) {
        this.data = null
        this.error = e
        this.pending = false
      }
      this.pending = false
    }
  },
  created() {
    setTimeout(() => {
      this.requestData()
    },500)
    this.refreshInterval = setInterval(() => {
      this.requestData()
    },3000)
  },
  beforeDestroy () {
    clearInterval(this.refreshInterval)
  }
}
</script>

EDIT: I tried implementing workers to offload xml2js to another thread, but still having the same issue. This is how my code looks now:

home.vue:

<template>
<template/>

<script>
import { mapGetters } from 'vuex'

export default {
  name: 'component1',
  data () {
    return {
      dataLoaded: true,
      error: false,
      results: null,
      refreshInterval: null
    }
  },
  computed: {
    ...mapGetters({
      token: 'main/token'
    })
  },
  methods: {
    requestData() {

      console.log('fetching....')

      this.$backendService
        .api()
        .then(xml => {
          return this.$backendService.x2jworker(xml)
        })
        .then(json => {
          if( this.results !== json['results'] ) {
            this.results  = json['results']
          }
          this.dataLoaded = true
          this.error = false
        })
        .catch((error) => {
          this.dataLoaded = true
          this.error = true
        })
    }
  },
  created() {
    setTimeout(() => {
      this.requestData()
    },500)
    this.refreshInterval = setInterval(() => {
      this.requestData()
    },3000)
  },
  beforeDestroy () {
    clearInterval(this.refreshInterval)
  }
}
</script>

backend-service.js:

import axios from 'axios';
import xml2js from 'nativescript-xml2js'
import { WorkerService } from "../worker.service"

export default class BackendService {

  api() {
    return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
      const url = 'url'
      axios.get(url)
        .then(response => {
          resolve(response.data)
        })
        .catch((error) => {
          if (error) {
            console.log('uh oh')
            reject(error)
          }
        })
    })
  }

  x2jworker(xml) {
    return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
      var workerService = new WorkerService()
      var jsWorker = workerService.initJsWorker()
      jsWorker.onmessage = m => {
        resolve(m.data)
      }
      jsWorker.postMessage(xml)
      jsWorker.onerror = e => {
        console.log(e)
        jsWorker.terminate()
        reject(e)
      }
    })
  }
}

worker/javascript.worker.js:

import 'tns-core-modules/globals'
import xml2js  from 'nativescript-xml2js'

global.onmessage = function (msg) {
    console.log("Inside JS worker...")
    var parser = new xml2js.Parser({
      async: true
    })

    parser.parseString(msg.data, function (err, result) {
      if (err) {
        console.log(err)
        global.close()
      } else {          
        global.postMessage(result)
      }
    })
}

worker-service.js:

const workers = []

export class WorkerService {
  constructor() {
  }

  initJsWorker() {
    if (this.jsWorker) {
      return this.jsWorker
    }

    const JsWorker = require("nativescript-worker-loader!./workers/javascript.worker.js")
    this.jsWorker = new JsWorker()
    workers.push(this.jsWorker)

    return this.jsWorker
  }
}

if ((module).hot) {
  (module).hot.dispose(() => {
    workers.forEach(w => {
      w.terminate()
    })
  })
}