The hug image of the coronavirus is called World Press Photo of the Year

THE HAGA, Netherlands (AP) – A photo symbolizing the “love and compassion” of an 85-year-old Brazilian woman who received her first hug in five months from a nurse through a transparent embrace curtain ”was named World Press Photo of the Year on Thursday.

The choice of a winning photograph representing the global pandemic was almost inevitable for the contest that spanned a year in which news from around the world was dominated by the virus that killed nearly 3 million people, including more than 360,000 in the world. Brazil, very affected.

The image of Danish photographer Mads Nissen captured the moment Rosa Luzia Lunardi was hugged by nurse Adriana Silva da Costa Souza at the Viva Bem nursing home in Sao Paulo on 5 August.

A sheer plastic curtain (its yellow edges folded into a shape similar to a pair of butterfly wings) offers protection, as does the nurse’s face mask.

“This iconic image of COVID-19 is reminiscent of the most extraordinary moment of our lives everywhere,” said jury member Kevin WY Lee. “I read about vulnerability, loved ones, loss and separation, disappearance, but, above all, survival, all in one graphic image. If you look at the image long enough, you will see wings: a symbol of flight and hope ”.

The image taken by Nissen for the agency Panos Pictures and the Danish newspaper Politiken also won first prize in the General News Singles category of the prestigious competition.

“The main message of this image is empathy. It’s love and compassion, ”Nissen said in a comment posted by contest organizers.

“It’s a very tough, very tough situation, and then in this horror, in this suffering, I think this image also sheds light,” Nissen said at an online awards ceremony after telling her she had won the award. and the accompanying $ 5,000 Prize ($ 6,000).

Second in the category was a much more macabre COVID-19 image: the body of an alleged coronavirus victim tightly wrapped in plastic at an Indonesian hospital on April 18 by Indonesian photographer Joshua Irwandi.

The pandemic even reached the Environment Singles category, with American photographer Ralph Pace winning for his image of a curious California sea lion swimming towards a face mask moving underwater instead of Monterey Breakwater Diving.

The judges examined 74,470 photographs from 4,315 photographers before selecting the winners in eight categories, including general news, sports, environment and portraits.

The World Press Photo Story of the Year was awarded to Italian documentary photographer Antonio Faccilongo, who works for Getty Reportage, for a series entitled “Habibi” about Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons pulling their semen out of the premises of arrest in hopes of forming a family.

The winner of the Spot News Singles category was an image that embodied the debate about the race in the United States. Evelyn Hockstein’s photo for the Washington Post shows a white man and a black woman disagreeing about the removal of the Emancipation Memorial in Washington, DC, depicting a freed slave kneeling at the feet of Abraham Lincoln.

The Black Lives Matter movement also appeared, with the series of Associated Press photographer John Minchillo, on the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd who won third prize in the Spot News Stories category won by Italian Lorenzo Tugnoli working for Contrasto for a series of images documenting a devastating port explosion in Beirut.

The category History of Contemporary Subjects was won by Russian photographer Alexey Vasilyev with a series on the film industry in the Sakha region of northeastern Russia. Associated Press photographer Maya Alleruzzo took second place in the category with a story about the Islamic State group that enslaved Yazidi women in Iraq.