'The Touch Of Life': Brazil Nurses Reimagine Hand-Holding For Isolated COVID-19 Patients

Brazil COVID-19 nurses: If there's any wisdom humans will come out of the coronavirus pandemic with, it will be that things we least value hold the most significance in weaving meaning into our lives. The simplest of them being touch. What we were inattentive to for being just another basic action has left us pining ever since the virus took over the world last year. How long before we can safely touch each other again, if only for a cold handshake or a warm hug?

And as we yearn, and yearn together, there are some yearning more than others. COVID-19 patients, sheltered in isolation wards, must seem like they're worlds away from reality. Shielded from outside contact, alone with their hopes and fears of disease and recovery.

To remedy that pandemic of loneliness, nurses in Brazil have innovated a re-imagined 'human touch' for affected patients in isolation. A viral tweet shows how they have filled up gloves with water to resemble a human hand, warm with life, that can be latched between the patient's own fingers.

Brazil COVID-19 Nurses Revive Memories Of Hand-Holding

Sharing a photo of the said innovation, Sadiq Sameer Bhat of Gulf News

‘The hand of God’ — nurses trying to comfort isolated patients in a Brazilian Covid isolation ward. Two disposable gloves tied, full of hot water, simulating impossible human contact. Salute to the front liners and a stark reminder of the grim situation our world is in! #MaskUp pic.twitter.com/HgVFwOtg2f

— Sadiq ‘Sameer’ Bhat (@sadiquiz) April 8, 2021 on Twitter, "nurses trying to comfort isolated patients in a Brazilian Covid isolation ward. Two disposable gloves tied, full of hot water, simulating impossible human contact."

Referring to it as the 'hand of God,' he held it up as "a stark reminder of the grim situation our world is in," saluting the frontline workers.

See innovation by Brazil COVID-19 nurses below: 

‘The hand of God’ — nurses trying to comfort isolated patients in a Brazilian Covid isolation ward. Two disposable gloves tied, full of hot water, simulating impossible human contact. Salute to the front liners and a stark reminder of the grim situation our world is in! #MaskUp pic.twitter.com/HgVFwOtg2f

— Sadiq ‘Sameer’ Bhat (@sadiquiz) April 8, 2021

Of Loneliness And Leaving Things Behind

In the over one year we have lived with the pandemic, entire worlds have changed. Friendships have been left behind, parenting for many has become tougher, work-from-home is taking a mental toll on those lucky to still be employed, experiences are being missed out on, death is looming large.

But we're still doing our best to cope, find some semblance of our old lives that seem to have been buried deep into the past. Where young kids are resorting to hug curtains for affection from their grandparents, health workers are trying to keep their spirits up through song and dance despite the pestilence they have seen up close.

We're all holding up the ends as best we can. And as the deadly virus returns for a second round, we'll probably have to brace harder. Upon hopes that it will soon be over and we'll be able to touch again.

Views expressed are the author's own.