Commentary
Two years ago, major American cities were segregated by vaccine status. Mask mandates delineated safe and unsafe. Signs told us to be separate from each other. We couldn’t even encounter each other during shopping thanks to one-way grocery aisles. We were not allowed to visit families or even attend funerals. Weddings were out of the question. There were even travel restrictions.
And today, the Department of Health and Human Services released a report sounding the alarm about the pandemic of loneliness.
“While social connection had been declining for decades prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the onset of the pandemic, with its lockdowns and stay-at-home orders, was a critical time during which the issue of connection came to the forefront of public consciousness, raising awareness about this critical and ongoing public health concern….