Joseph Varon, a doctor treating coronavirus patients at a Texas hospital, was working his 252nd day in a row when he spotted a distraught elderly man in the Covid-19 intensive care unit (ICU).
Varon's comforting embrace of the white-haired man on Thanksgiving Day was captured by a photographer for Getty Images and has gone viral around the world.
Varon, chief of staff at United Memorial Medical Center in Houston, told CNN he was entering the Covid ICU when he saw the elderly patient "out of his bed and trying to get out of the room."
"And he's crying," Varon said. "So I get close to him and I (ask) him, 'Why are you crying?'"
"And the man says, 'I want to be with my wife.' So I just grab him and I hold him," Varon said. "I was feeling very sorry for him. I was feeling very sad, just like him."
"Eventually he felt better and he stopped crying," Varon told CNN on Monday, which he said was his 256th consecutive day of work.
Dr Joseph Varon comforts a patient in the COVID-19 intensive care unit
"I don't know why I haven't broken down," the doctor said. "My nurses cry in the middle of the day."
Varon said the isolation of the Covid unit was difficult for many patients, particularly the elderly.
"You can imagine," he said. "You are inside a room where people are coming in spacesuits.
"When you are an elderly individual, it's more difficult because you are alone," he said.
"Some of them cry. Some of them try to escape," he said. "We actually had somebody who tried to escape through a window the other day."
Varon said the elderly man in the picture is "doing much better."
"We are hoping that before the end of the week he'll be able to get out of the hospital," he said.
Varon also had a message for people who are not taking precautions amid the pandemic.
"People are out there in bars, restaurants, malls," the doctor said. "It is crazy. People don't listen and then they end up in my ICU.
"What people need to know is I don't want to have to be hugging them.
"They need to do the basic things -- keep your social distance, wear your masks, wash their hands, and avoid going to places where there are a lot of people," he said. "If people would do that, healthcare workers like me could hopefully rest."
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
OpenAI Blocks Iranian Group's ChatGPT Accounts For Targeting US Election Video: Private Equity CEO Arrested After Body-Slamming Teen At US Restaurant US Court Calls Google Monopolist, Says It Violates Competition Law Parents Gave Names Of Interns, Doctors To CBI In Kolkata Horror: Sources How Extreme Weather Is Leading To Rise In Child Marriages In Pakistan Who Is Jasveen Sangha, "Ketamine Queen" Charged With Matthew Perry's Death Two Sisters Returning From Court Run Over By Car In UP: Cops India Sends 1,400 kg Anti-Cancer Drugs To Syria In Humanitarian Assistance Police Arrest Suspect In Bihar Dalit Girl Kidnapping, Murder Case Track Latest News Live on NDTV.com and get news updates from India and around the world.