Teacher crafts plastic barrier at her home so she can hug her students

A teacher in Indiana invited her students around for a hug after she constructed a homemade plastic barrier at her front door in an attempt to stay at a social distance amid the coronavirus outbreak.

On Tuesday evening, second-grade teacher Kelsey Pavelka began constructing the barrier made from a shower curtain, tape and Ziploc bags.

On Wednesday morning she finished the “Quarantine Hug station” and invited her students around for a hug, making sure they disinfected their side of the barrier after the interaction.

Pavelka said she was able to hug her students a “bunch of times” before catching up on what they had been up to. She said the reception from her students had been of “pure joy.”

Parts of Indiana have started to ease restrictions on social distancing despite data from the New York Times on Wednesday showing that the state has seen 20 deaths from COVID-19 for every 100,000 people, a higher proportion than the majority of the US.

As of late Wednesday, the virus has infected about 1.2 million people in the United States and killed around 74,000.