The coronavirus pandemic has disrupted everyday life for people all around the world, none more so than senior citizens.
As they are more vulnerable to the disease, seniors will most likely be the last to have social distancing restrictions lifted, which is likely to have an adverse effect on their mental health.
While the world's top scientists and researchers work to find a solution to the health problems of coronavirus crisis, a 10-year-old girl from California named Paige might have found a way to help deal with the mental health crisis facing seniors, ABC7 reported on Monday.
Paige calls her solution the "hug curtain" since she and her mother made it using only a shower curtain, Ziploc bags, a hot glue gun and disposable plates.
Her mother, Lindsay Okray, works as a nurse in the COVID-19 unit at Riverside Community Hospital, which has forced her to be extra-cautious about social distancing.
Medical staff and hospital workers have been getting infected with the novel coronavirus at a much higher rate than the general population, meaning nurses like Lindsay must adhere to much stricter social distancing guidelines.
"She came up with the idea, she laid it out in the family room and spent multiple hours working on it," Okray said of her daughter's creation.
Two days later, a different family from Rockford, Illinois created what they called a "hug time shield" so they could hug their 85-year-old great-grandmother, Rose Gagnon.
“I wanted to cry because I couldn’t believe that this was happening it just means a lot,” Rose said, after hugging her family for the first time in over two months.
The hug time shield was created by Rose's granddaughter, Carly Marinaro. On Wednesday, Marinaro posted the instructions on how to build a hug time shield for yourself after the shield went viral.
- 3 X 7’ PVC 1 1/2”
- 4 X 3’ PVC 1 1/2”
- 2 X elbow piece
- 2 X T shaped piece
- 1 window insulator kit for sliding glass door
- 1 duct tape roll for all joints and edges
- 1 pack livestock disposable gloves