Despite most of the nation being holed up for the past year, there was quite a lack of “chilling” even as the viewership of Netflix and other streaming services exploded. Birth rates plummeted to a record low after five previous straight years of decline. Although better contraception use has contributed to a decrease in the abortion rate, protection doesn’t look like the key factor here. Instead, our population crisis is an intimacy one.

Although the coronavirus didn’t preclude married and dating couples from co-habitating and copulating, a startling number of people in the United States were single and evidently not ready to mingle, even prior to the pandemic. In 2019, a majority of adults 18 to 34 reported not having a steady partner, and nearly a quarter of 20-somethings reported having no sex in the prior year.