The WHO tells Americans to stop hugging each other as COVID-19 rates soar and hospitals reach breaking point
- The coronavirus was the leading cause of death in the US last week.
- The situation is so dire that the World Health Organization told Americans to "avoid those hugs" this holiday season.
- The virus spreads well when people are in close contact, hugging, kissing, and sharing long conversations — especially indoors.
The coronavirus situation has gotten so dire in the US that the World Health Organization now says Americans should "avoid those hugs" this holiday season, recognizing how uniquely awful the outbreak is going across the country.
"It's a horrible thing to think that we would be here as the World Health Organization saying to people 'don't hug each other,'" WHO director of health emergencies Dr. Mike Ryan said on Monday during a press briefing. "That's terrible. But that is the brutal reality in places like the United States right now."
The coronavirus is now the leading cause of death in the US, according to a recent report from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, and people are dying every minute from COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.
Hospitals in hotspots across the nation have reached a breaking point, rationing care, and leaving people lying in wait on stretchers in the ER, as they run out of both beds for patients, and healthy staff to care for them.
"It's quite frankly shocking to see one to two persons a minute die in the US," Ryan said. "A country with a wonderful, strong health system, amazing technological capacities."
Why hugging people who you don't live with is a bad idea right now
Hugging is not the only - or even the primary - way that the coronavirus spreads. Sharing air is what most often gets people sick.
But when transmission rates are high, as is the case in the US right now, the chances of catching the virus by getting close to someone, perhaps for a hug, are pretty good.
The CDC, likewise, recommends that people avoid hugging others right now, even those who live in their same household bubble, if those people are at high-risk for coronavirus complications.
Being "in the same space as somebody else for a long time," Ryan said, is one of the most dangerous things you can do right now, "because there are more opportunities during that period for the virus to jump."
It may not necessarily be that a brief, masked hug itself is inherently more dangerous than other masked, close contact activities, but rather that the nature of our relationships with the people we hug: that they're probably people we like to get close to and cozy up with for a while, allows plenty of time for the virus to transmit.
"What we know is most transmission is happening among people who tend to spend a lot of time together," the WHO's technical lead for COVID-19, Maria Van Kerkhove, said Monday, stressing that more intimate settings like households and workplaces, where people are indoors together for long periods of time are some of the most dangerous spots.
"If you're hugging someone, if you're kissing someone, if you're caring for someone, especially if they're sick, those are all really important," she said.
Hugs and kisses alone are not to blame. Any situation in which people get loose about coronavirus precautions is a recipe for more viral spread. For example, there is evidence that healthcare workers have not been getting infected very often in clinical settings, but rather when they're spending time in hospital break rooms, where masks are off, people are talking and eating, and space is often tight.
Houses and cars are also small spaces where people spend lots of time together. One comprehensive study of coronavirus cases in Singapore found that 30-minute conversations, car rides, and sharing a bedroom were some of the most high-risk activities, when it came to catching and spreading COVID-19.