An American doctor, who was at work for the 251st day in a row, gave a corona patient in the hospital a comforting hug. The photo went around the world in recent days as a picture that is typical of the corona pandemic. Now the doctor at CNN tells his story.
Chief physician Joseph Varon was in hospital on Thanksgiving when he suddenly saw a corona patient crying. “Why are you crying?” asked the doctor, who had been caring for corona patients continuously for more than eight months. “I want to go to my wife”, was his answer. But it couldn’t. “Then I grabbed him,” says Joseph. “But I didn’t know I was going to be photographed.” News photographer Go Nakamura was in the hospital at the time.
“It’s so difficult for those patients,” says Joseph. “You are alone, you feel isolated. Some patients even try to escape, recently one through a window. They really want to leave. ” The man kept crying.
The photo shows well the despair of some patients. “I felt sad about this man’s situation. I stay at the bedside of patients, I talk to them, I hold their hand. But sometimes we have so many patients that we cannot always do this for everyone. ”
The man is also recovering and may be allowed to leave the hospital at the end of the week.
–
– .
