Restrictions vital, but lockdowns cause suffering
“I feel like I’m in prison,” she said to me over the phone.
As a primary care physician, I have been conducting “virtual visits” with most of my patients by phone or video for the past two months. This patient, a 90-yearold woman, lives in a senior living community where the management has decided to keep all residents in their rooms for 23 1⁄
2 hours per day to keep them safe from the coronavirus. Like prisoners, they are allowed out for only 30 minutes daily to get some fresh air and exercise.
We all understand the reasoning behind these restrictions, but I fear we are not acknowledging the incredible suffering caused by them. My patient is suffering from anxiety, depression and insomnia as a result of this lockdown. Many others in our area and around the country are suffering from increased domestic violence, alcoholism and even suicide from the isolation brought on by social distancing.
The toll is immense. We are social creatures and are not meant to separate from one another like hermits.
As a nation, we have been in some form of lockdown for two months. We have flattened the curve, and new cases are decreasing. Although the loss of life from this disease has been staggering, we did not run out of ventilators, and patients have not been turned away from hospitals for lack of resources and personnel to care for them. This is no doubt partially due to social distancing, but the fact is that we have done better than the experts predicted even taking that into account.
On the other hand, we vastly underestimated the human toll social distancing itself would cause. Restaurants, factories and numerous other places of business are on the brink of collapse. Many will not recover from this shut down. Students, including my own children, are struggling with distance learning, which, even at its best, is a poor substitute for the classroom.
Sadly, there is every reason to believe that as a result of the economic devastation things will only get worse. A study done of the 2007 Great Recession showed that for every 1% increase in unemployment, there was a 1.6% increase in the suicide rate. If this is reliable, then based on current suicide rates and the rise in unemployment so far, we can expect over 8,000 more suicides in the United States next year.
Furthermore, we can expect an increase in illness and death due to the neglect of preventive care. Mammograms, colonoscopies, routine well checks and vaccinations have been postponed during this time. We in the medical profession will do our best to help our patients catch up in the coming months as restrictions are eased. But it is difficult enough as it is to see that all our patients receive the recommended preventive care.
I am very concerned that with fewer people getting their routine care now, morbidity and mortality from preventable diseases will rise
cure or vaccine for the coronavirus could be years away. It might never come. It has been nearly 40 years since HIV was discovered to be the cause of
AIDS and, while there are excellent treatments for it, we still do not have a cure or vaccine. We cannot stay in lockdown while we wait, as some people are advocating. Even extending the current lockdown for another few months could be catastrophic.
We need to get back to living. We need to return to work, to school, to the gym and to the mall. Yes, precautions should be taken. This will involve distancing and wearing masks when appropriate.
As our nation starts to get back to the “new normal,” there will no doubt be an increase in cases in some areas. There are few proven guidelines for how to ease restrictions, and policy makers will make mistakes. But please remember, if you read about cases going up, that the alternative, continuing the lockdown, would have been very dangerous as well.
I believe it would be even more deadly.