Story behind the viral photo of the doctor hugging grandfather with coronavirus

The photo of an American doctor with gloves, mask and visor hugging an elderly adult has gone viral on social media, symbolizing the desperation of the victims of COVID-19 and the compassion of health workers.

The photo was taken on Thanksgiving Day at United Memorial Hospital in Houston, Texas, by a photographer from the Getty agency.

Dr Joseph Varon, the hospital’s chief of staff, told CNN he was in the intensive care unit when he saw a white-haired man get out of bed and try to leave the room.

“I was crying like a little baby,” Varon said.

“So I go to him and ask him: ‘Why are you crying?’ And the man says, ‘I want to be with my wife.’ So I take him and hug him, “added the doctor, who said he didn’t know at the time they were photographing him.

“I felt very sorry for him. I felt very sad, just like him,” she said.

Varon said the admission to intensive care of COVID-19
it is “difficult”, even more so for the elderly who feel alone and surrounded by people in “space suits”.

“In fact, one patient tried to escape out the window the other day. They are so isolated they want to leave. It’s very sad.”

The doctor said the old man is much better and could be discharged from the hospital before the end of the week.

“We have so many patients that sometimes we can’t hug them all, hold their hands or at least try to be more human”, Varon said, that this Thursday he completed 259 consecutive days of work.

“I don’t know why I haven’t broken it,” he confessed. “My nurses cry in the middle of the day.”

Varon expressed his “frustration” at the failure to comply with basic health measures to prevent the spread of the virus: use of masks, social distance, hand washing.

“There are people who say,” If you have to give me, give me. “The problem is they don’t realize that about two weeks later they are half dead in my unit.”, he expressed.

“We work every day and people do everything wrong: go to bars, restaurants, shopping malls
, it’s crazy, “he said.

“They don’t listen and they end up in my ICU. People should know I don’t want to have to hug them,” she added.

For Man, “the next six weeks will be the darkest weeks in the history of American medicine. I say this because people don’t pay attention ”.

This is why he insists that protecting oneself from COVID “is very simple if you follow the guidelines, then health personnel, like me, can rest”.

Texas in November became the first U.S. state to pass one million positive coronavirus cases since the start of the pandemic and amass more than 20,000 deaths.

According to coronavirus vaccine
, the doctor says to be effective, over 60% of the world’s population must apply it and “it will take time to get people to let them wear it, which is another problem in and of itself.”