Isolation

A lockdown, by definition, is an extreme form of social isolation. People are prevented from leaving their homes unless it is absolutely necessary, and from having human company. According to surveys in the United States and Europe, approximately 40% of people had a decrease in income, and 25% of people lost their jobs completely.

Among those lucky enough to remain employed, a large portion started working from home, while almost everyone else was and still is forced to stay at least 2 meters away from others while at work. Studies have captured the prevalence of acute loneliness during the lockdown. Both of these employment situations decrease social connection and hurt wellbeing.

A survey of 16,200 professionals by Hays found that only 35% of respondents rated their wellbeing as positive, compared to 61% pre-lockdown. The most common reasons offered by respondents for their less favorable assessment of their wellbeing were the lack of social interaction and the lonesomeness from being at home at all time.

If you learn only one thing from this website, it should be that social distancing laws are perilous for public health and wellbeing. The evidence indicates that isolating from others is far more dangerous to society than a coronavirus outbreak that left no one uninfected. Health has two aspects: quality of life and duration of life. Lockdowns have serious consequences for both.

Recent studies have documented a collapse in quality of life for people living under a lockdown, or social distancing rules of some sort. In India, a 35% decrease in quality of life was reported during the lockdown. In Denmark, 43% of women rated their quality of life as low compared to 17% prior to the lockdown. China witnessed an astonishing 74% drop in emotional wellbeing. In Uganda and Canada, surveys indicate that quality of life has decreased approximately 25% due to lockdowns. Currently 77% of Malaysians rate their quality of life as low, up from 33% pre-lockdown. In a British survey, 70% of respondents reported feeling acutely isolated and lacking human contact. 

Social distancing, therefore, has an impact on quality of life comparable to an acute disease. For instance, malaria decreases quality of life by 20% and severe heart failure, by 18%, according to the WHO. People living with untreated AIDS have a 50% decrease in life quality, the same as reported by a large portion of people in the present quarantine. We wouldn’t put up with our government intentionally giving us malaria, so why should we tolerate them giving us something even more harmful?

The psychological harms of social isolation often manifest themselves as depression. Many studies have captured a sharp rise in depression and anxiety since lockdowns began. According to one study, a third of Americans are now displaying clinical-level depression. A US study by OnePoll found that one in six adults had entered therapy for the first time in 2020. It also found one in six Americans began taking psychiatric medication for the first time in that year.  The OnePoll study found that 88% of respondents had a least one symptom of psychological trauma.

A Greek study discovered a major increase in mental health issues among university students: 42.5% for anxiety, 74.3% for depression, and a 63.3% increase in suicidal thoughts. In a survey by the prestigious order of psychologists (CNOP) in Italy, 80% of respondents reported that their mental health was so unbearable that they could not cope. A common finding across lockdown mental health surveys around the world is that at least 25% of people are now experiencing severe mental distress.

Lockdowns destroy quality of life in the order of acute disease and cause emotional disorders which are often severe. Sadly, that is only the beginning of their health effects. Most countries have put in place permanent social distancing measures that prevent people from hanging out with friends and family. Moreover, distancing policies make it nearly impossible to add to one’s social circle.

With the closure of bars and any club or venue in which people would be in close proximity, along with the universal 2 meter rule, it is next to impossible for people to make new friends or romantic partners. As long as people practice distancing, mandated or voluntary, there will be a large segment of the population that is acutely isolated and lonely. Serial loneliness is the legacy of lockdowns, and few realize its magnitude.

Literature on loneliness indicates that it robs people of approximately 10 years of life, on average. Ten years is also the average decrease in longevity seen by smokers. Obesity, the elephant of developed world health risks, statistically cuts life short by an average of only 2.7 years according to the OECD. The mechanisms by which loneliness results in early death are varied. It seems that loneliness works at least as much by affecting physiology directly as by influencing lifestyle and behaviors. 

It is important to note that the studies on loneliness and social isolation center on people who have basically normal lives but lack close friendship and an active social life. The subjects in the studies usually have jobs or attend school in which they regularly interact with others. The social deprivation that people now experience as a result of social distancing is an entirely different animal.

Today, people are either working alone at home or if they go to work, they are forced to stay away from their coworkers. When not at work, they are generally stuck at home, not allowed to even visit family, attend church, participate in a club, or engage in other activities in which the friend-deprived have conventionally been able to get some socialization. More relevant, perhaps, are studies on solitary confinement of prisoners, in which long-term disintegration of the mind and personality are commonplace.

The general stress of living under social distancing — the loneliness, boredom, financial worries, uncertainty, and media-induced fear of getting COVID — has a serious impact on the brain. According to University of Toronto psychiatry professor, Dr. Roger McIntyre, “Work that’s looked at the effect of chronic, malignant, unpredictable stress on the brain has shown loss of brain tissue. And not just randomly anywhere in the brain. Key brain areas that are responsible for what you and I need to do each day: think and feel.” Lockdowns are an innovative form of assault. Real public health measures don’t injure people’s brains.

Perhaps we should have “This is your brain on lockdown” commercials like the famous “This is your brain on drugs” commercials from the 1980s (see below).

Emerging data from the CDC is already starting to show that social distancing is causing fatal loneliness. Deaths from dementia have risen 20% since the restrictions began. Social isolation not only causes dementia, it kills people who already have dementia. Forced confinement in nursing home has severely affected residents’ health. Having studied the effects of confinement of nursing home residents, Dr. Samir Sinha, geriatrics director at Toronto’s Mount Sinai Hospital, has stated “Many LTC home residents have sustained severe and potentially irreversible physical, functional, cognitive, and mental health declines.”

The demographic that has been thought to fare the best under COVID restrictions, white collar employees working from home, is now showing signs of severe mental disintegration. In March 2021, Canada’s Globe & Mail reported that people working from home are increasingly breaking down from the long period of working without in-person interaction.

Also, work-related stress is higher for white collar workers now that they work from home. They don’t get the positive feedback from their supervisors. As a result, they become insecure that they are under-performing and take on more work than they can handle. The Globe also reported that 40% of finance and professional service managers have contemplated quitting since the lockdown began.

If social distancing is continued, over a billion people can expect to have their lives cut short by about a decade due to loneliness (not including the decreased life expectancy from other aspects of lockdowns). This will have a significant effect on national life expectancy. Coronavirus, on the other hand, won’t put a dent in population-level life expectancy no matter how many people become infected because it only has the potential to shorten the lives of 1 in 600 infected people by only a few years each, on average. 

It is not possible to adequately mitigate the loneliness epidemic created by social distancing. Internet dating sites do not work well for men; only a small percentage are able to get dates that way. Moreover, people are too afraid to meet in person for fear of catching coronavirus even if they meet someone online that they are interested in. Social psychologists have noted that most relationships, romantic or platonic, emerge from physical proximity, such as attending the same class or church. “Cyber-living” has scant potential to compensate for a withdrawal from the real world. The only solution to prevent loneliness from killing hundreds of millions of people is for civil rights to be reinstated and social distancing to end.

More information on the mind and identity-altering effects of lockdown isolation can be found in the torture articles.