A hug just cannot be outlawed
GETTING CLOSE: VIRUS SAFETY MEASURES NOT 100% EFFECTIVE SO CHOOSE EMBRACES WISELY
Physical affection is necessary to reduce distress and calm the sympathetic nervous system.
ACanadian woman was so desperate to hug her mother during quarantine that she created a “hug glove” using a clear tarp with sleeves to hug through the plastic.
A video of two young cousins in Kentucky hugging and weeping after weeks apart in quarantine was shared thousands of times.
“We did not expect for them to react the way they did,” said Amber Collins, who recorded the reunion of her son, Huckston, 8, with his cousin Rosalind Arnett, 10. “They were so overjoyed they didn’t know how to express themselves, except to cry. This hug shows how powerful the human touch truly is.”
Not only do we miss hugs, we need them.
Physical affection reduces stress by calming our sympathetic nervous system, which during times of worry releases damaging stress hormones into our bodies.
In one series of studies, just holding hands with a loved one reduced the distress of an electric shock.
“Humans have brain pathways that are specifically dedicated to detecting affectionate touch,” says Johannes Eichstaedt, a computational social scientist and psychology professor at Stanford University. “Affectionate touch is how our biological systems communicate to one another that we are safe, that we are loved, and that we are not alone.”
To learn the safest way to hug during a viral outbreak, I asked Linsey Marr, an aerosol scientist at Virginia Tech and one of the world’s leading experts on airborne disease transmission, about the risk of viral exposure during a hug.
Based on mathematical models from a Hong Kong study that shows how respiratory viruses travel during close contact, Marr calculated that the risk of exposure during a brief hug can be surprisingly low – even if you hugged a person who didn’t know they were infected and happened to cough.
Here’s why.
We don’t know the exact dose required for the new coronavirus to make you sick, but estimates range from 200 to 1 000 copies of the virus.
An average cough might carry anywhere from 5 000 to 10 000 viruses, but most of the splatter lands on the ground or nearby surfaces.
When people are in close contact, typically only about 2% of the liquid in the cough – or about 100 to 200 viruses – would be inhaled by or splashed on a person nearby. But only 1% – just one or two viruses – actually will be infectious.
“We don’t know how many infectious viruses it takes to make you sick – probably more than one,” said Marr. “If you don’t talk or cough while hugging, the risk should be very low.”
There’s tremendous variability in how much virus a person sheds, so the safest thing is to avoid hugs.
But if you need a hug, take precautions: wear a mask, hug outdoors, try to avoid touching the other person’s body or clothes with your face and your mask and don’t hug someone who is coughing or has other symptoms.
Remember that some hugs are riskier than others.
Point your faces in opposite directions – the position of your face matters most.
Don’t talk or cough while you’re hugging and do it quickly.
Back away quickly so you don’t breathe into each other’s faces. Wash your hands afterward. And try not to cry. Tears and runny noses increase risk for coming into contact with more fluids that contain the virus.
While some of the precautions may sound like a lot of effort, people need options, given the pandemic will be with us for a while, said Julia Marcus, an infectious disease epidemiologist and assistant professor at Harvard Medical School.
“There’s a real challenge right now for older people who worry that they won’t be able to touch or connect with family for the rest of their lives.
“Keeping hugs brief is particularly important because the risk of transmission increases with more prolonged contact.”
Dos and don’ts of hugging:
Don’t hug face-to-face
“When the shorter person looks up, their exhaled breath, because of its warmth and buoyancy, travels up into the taller person’s breathing zone. If the taller person is looking down, there is opportunity for the huggers’ exhaled and inhaled breaths to mingle,” said Marr.
Don’t hug cheeks together, facing the same direction
Each person’s exhaled breath is in the other’s breathing zone.
Hug facing opposite directions
Turn your faces in opposite directions, which prevents you from breathing each other’s exhaled particles. Wear a mask.
Let children hug you around the knees or waist
This lowers risk for direct exposure because faces are far apart. Change clothes, and wash your hands after a visit that includes hugs. The adult should look away so as not to breathe down on the child.
Kiss on the back of the head
The recipient could be exposed to the taller person’s breath, so kiss through a mask.
Julian Tang, a virologist and associate professor at the University of Leicester in England who studies how respiratory viruses travel through the air, said he would add one more precaution:
Hold your breath.
“Most hugs last less than 10 seconds, so people should be able to manage this.”
Then back away at least two metres before talking again.
Yuguo Li, a University of Hong Kong engineering professor and senior author on the paper that Marr cited, said hugs probably pose less risk than a longer faceto-face conversation.
“The exposure time is short ... ” Marr noted that because the risk of a quick hug with precautions is very low but not zero, people should choose their hugs wisely.