Millions in UK ‘have suffered lockdown loneliness’
Third of people affected by isolation, study shows
MILLIONS OF Britons have been plunged into loneliness due to the coronavirus lockdown as campaigners claimed the crisis should provide a watershed to transform society and create far more connected communities.
New research published by the Office for National Statistics showed almost 7.4m Britons said that their well-being had been affected by feelings of loneliness in the first month of the lockdown.
Young people were more disproportionately affected, being twice as likely as baby boomers, those aged from 55 to 69, to experience loneliness. Lonely people were also more likely than others to struggle to find things to help them cope and were less likely to feel they had support networks to fall back on, the research published yesterday found.
Social isolation has come to the national attention more than ever before since the pandemic began, with the Government pledging £5m into efforts to curb loneliness. The Minster for Loneliness, Baroness Diana Barran, told The Yorkshire Post, which has campaigned on the issue since 2014, that there was much that could be learnt from how charities responded to the crisis.
Iona Lawrence, of the Connection Coalition which brought together more than 300 charities and organisations through the Jo Cox Foundation to tackle the social isolation crisis, said the ONS research shone a light on the complexities of the challenge of tackling loneliness, and that more needed to be done to tackle the mental health effects of isolation.
She said: “This time has been quite binary in that, for some people, they have created meaningful connections – met their neighbours for the first time and reconnected with family, but for others, it has been a time of extreme loneliness.
“We have heard stories of incredibly creative ways in which people have tackled their loneliness, from pulling down garden
fences to share a cup of tea with their neighbours to endless Zoom calls.
“However, we need to be clear about the costs of loneliness and the £5m committed by the Government needs to be the beginning, not the end, of the support for loneliness causes. Now is the time to refocus and create truly connected communities.”
The ONS research showed that 50.8 per cent of those aged 16 to 24 said they were lonely during the lockdown. By contrast, just under a quarter of people aged 55 to 69 who reported their well-being as being affected by the lockdown said they had felt lonely.
The oldest age band, those aged 70 and over, were no less likely than average to report lockdown loneliness. Single and widowed people were more likely to feel lonely during the lockdown, as well as those who are divorced or separated from a civil partner.
Dawn Snape, an assistant director at the ONS, said: “Lonely people were more likely than others to be struggling to find things to help them cope and were also less likely to feel they had support networks to fall back on.”