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Photographer Go Nakamura has visited the intensive care unit for covid-19 patients in Houston about 20 times, but he never gets used to what happens to him.
“Taking pictures that are too graphic to share, meeting patients who have left when I return the next week, you can’t get used to it,” Nakamura told USA Today.
This weekend, Americans celebrated an unusual Thanksgiving Day marked by the corona pandemic, and Nakamura captured the moment that is now circling the world with his camera.
As the number of admitted COVID-19 patients reaches new heights and some hospitals near the limit, he was allowed to be with Houston hospital chief of staff Joseph Varon on duty.
The image in which Varon, wrapped in a full infection control kit, embraces what the photographer describes as a “clearly lonely and vulnerable” patient, has received much attention in the United States in recent days.
According to Nakamura, the chief of staff has a unique ability to reach out to patients. He should be known for his words of encouragement, but a hug is rarely long-lasting, he says.
THANKSGIVING: Dr. Joseph Varon takes a well-deserved snack in the Houston hospital’s intensive care unit on Saturday. Photo: Go Nakamura / Getty Images / AFP / NTB
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Worked every day since the pandemic escalated
The number of COVID-19 patients treated in U.S. hospitals reached 90,000 on Friday. Over the past month, the number of hospitalized patients has doubled and is now at its highest level yet during the pandemic, according to Reuters.
Infection rates have risen across the United States in recent weeks. On Monday morning there were 13.7 million cases of infection. More than 273,000 people have lost their lives so far in the pandemic.
Before the weekend, Joseph Varon told CNN that he feared a new influx of sick patients after the holidays.
“My main concern for the next six to twelve weeks is that if we don’t do things now, America will enter the darkest moment in modern American history,” he said.
– My hospital is full. I just opened two new wings so we have room in the next few days, because I know people are going to get sick after Thanksgiving.
Varon told the channel that Friday was his 251st consecutive working day, due to the ongoing pandemic. Neither he nor the patient have so far commented on the photos taken this weekend.
