Isolation causes its own social problems

My grocery store has a sign up at its cash registers: ““Due to the COVID-19 virus, we no longer accept reusable grocery bags.”” Instead, they’ll give away free plastic bags.

Not that long ago, the same store encouraged reusable bags, to cut back on singleuse plastic bags made from fossil fuels that ended up in landfill sites. Or swirling around the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

I cite that as a single instance of the way the coronavirus panic is suddenly reversing – rightly or wrongly – many of the notions that we took for granted.

The biggest of all sporting events, the 2020 Olympic Games, will not take place this summer. Since 1896, only the two world wars have broken the Games’ four-year schedule.

I’m a Rotary member. Rotary International used to insist – indeed, it was written into their constitution and bylaws – that clubs must meet every week. Now clubs have cancelled all in-person meetings. Even regional conferences and training programs closed.

All my life, churches have stressed the importance of regular attendance. Either for the sake of my immortal soul, which needs a top-up every week. Or for the sake of building a caring community.

But apparently those things don’t matter as much anymore.

My Catholic friends were told they had to attend mass every week. Even during epidemics. Because the wafer and wine, as the symbolic body and blood of the sinless Christ, could not transmit germs.

Umm …… maybe not anymore.

The coronavirus pandemic has rattled the cages of conventional assumptions.

The first indications of panic started with personal hygiene. Wash your hands. Wipe down surfaces that might hide invisible viruses. Cough or sneeze into your elbow. Don’t touch your face. Maintain a minimum distance between yourself and others.

But two people have difficulty holding a heart-to-heart conversation six feet apart. With five or six spread out, any kind of coherent conversation becomes impossible.

So restaurants and coffee shops are shuttered. Sports arenas are empty. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has even closed those iconic institutions, the British pubs.Drastic measures may indeed be needed to reduce the spread of the COVID-19 virus. I can’t challenge the decisions of medical authorities.

But I’m concerned about the spin-off damages, the side-effects of isolation. Because it seems to me that the solutions to the coronavirus run contrary to everything we know about social health.

Perhaps I’m over-sensitive to this issue. My wife died two weeks ago. I have never been so lonely in my life. Now, because of COVID-19, I’m supposed to isolate myself further, to make myself even lonelier? This is not good for my mental health.

Nor for a lot of other people’s health. In two of his books, The Broken Heart and A Cry Unheard, author James Lynch contends that loneliness leads to more deaths among the elderly than any disease. The death certificate may cite heart failure or pneumonia; the underlying cause is loneliness. Seniors in a care facility may meet for meals. Then they go back to their rooms. The TV is turned on, but they’re not really watching. They see no one until the next meal. The cycle repeats…….

And in a lockdown, they never leave their rooms at all. Even interactions with staff are prohibited.

Most societies today class prolonged solitary confinement as a form of torture.

For those not in institutions, the loneliness must be even more intense. I wonder how many people will die alone, and no one will even know about it for weeks. Months.

We humans are social creatures. We need human interaction.

While the electronic media can help us keep in touch, they can’t substitute for person-to-person contact. You can’t hold hands on Facebook. Or get a hug on Skype. You can’t cuddle on Zoom.

I’m not short of news. But no one has touched me in two weeks. I wonder when someone will be allowed to.

Lonely-hearts columnists offer stock answers. Get out, they say. Find clubs that share your hobbies or interests. Volunteer for local charities. Sign up for a gym, a yoga class, a dance group.

Yeah. Right.

I wonder how society will change, when this is all over. If it’s ever over, if some new global crisis doesn’t surge in on the backwash of the COVID tsunami.

Will we take a second look at norms taken for granted for generations?

Will we re-assess our reactions to a crisis, to see how much damage the cure caused?

Or will we just slide back into the old ways as if nothing had changed?