Loneliness is such a sad affair, as the saying goes, and our politicians have succeeded in turning America into a lonely nation by decree. We are going on four months now of lockdowns, business shutdowns, and few social gatherings. What this is doing to the nation’s psyche has been devastating.
A good friend of mine, Wayne, is 80 years old. He’s sociable, always upbeat, and a great storyteller. He likes nothing more than to have a whiskey sour and a long dinner with friends. Also, he’s single and loves to visit the ladies, especially the younger ones in their 60s and 70s! Last week, I spoke to him, and he was more forlorn than anytime I’ve ever known him. He lives in an upscale assisted living facility, but he hasn’t been able to visit with friends for three months. He’s been isolated. A delivery man brings his meals, and he isn’t allowed to go out during the daytime when there are a lot of people out on the streets of Chicago. I offered to see him, and he was excited but called back to say I couldn’t visit, as the folks at his living center won’t allow him to have outsiders come in because of the virus.
He’s depressed. He says he is starting to feel “more dead than alive.”
Probably everyone reading this knows more than one person suffering from the agony of moderate to severe depression resulting from this continuing, godawful economic lockdown that is supposed to be saving lives.
The adverse effects on the public’s health are getting more worrisome with every passing week.
The good folks at the Foundation for Economic Education recently reported “alarming spikes in drug overdoses — a hidden epidemic within the coronavirus pandemic.”
By examining the national drug abuse data, the group found that overdoses in March rose by 18% from the previous year, nationally. In April, that figure ticked up to 29%. In May, the increase was 42%.
Mental health experts find a strong link between loneliness/depression and drug overdoses. Social distancing may be useful for us, but it isn’t good for us as well, especially after many months.
Other research confirms that isolation can lead to physical health problems ranging from loss of sleep, heart failure, stress to injured immune systems, and obesity. I’ve gained many pounds since the lockdowns began as I regularly raid the refrigerator when I get bored from staying at home. Children are especially negatively affected, and research indicates the cognitive effects can be long-lasting. Get the schools, the parks, the playgrounds, and the sports programs opened, for goodness’s sake.
These adverse effects on children from isolation and indoor lockdowns are especially enraging because we know that children are at minimal risk of getting sick from the coronavirus. They are about as likely to die from the coronavirus as the flu, unless they have some severe preexisting health problems.
There is another negative sociological effect from the fear virus that is disrupting healthy human connection. People are suspicious, and they walk rapidly away from you if they see you coming toward them. They scowl and get agitated. I am told by some of my friends who lived through the horrible polio epidemic of the 1940s and early 1950s that it was never like that. Although polio was a much more crippling and fatally dangerous disease than the coronavirus, people didn’t walk around suspicious that the person next to them was carrying the disease. Commerce continued to flow, and businesses didn’t shut down, though frequently swimming pools were closed.
It was the greatest generation, and they lived through the Great Depression and World War II. They weren’t going to let a disease shut down society. Polls show today that young people in their 20s and 30s are the most worried about the coronavirus and the most in favor of lockdowns despite being part of the age group least likely to get sick. It is the snowflake and “safe spaces” generation that lives in mortal peril that someone might say something that offends them. It would be hard to imagine these worrywarts storming the beaches of Normandy.
The public has to be braver. We need to interact, and solitary confinement is a form of punishment. The political class in America is punishing us all for their arrogance and incompetence.
