Opinion | Failure to fight loneliness during Covid-19 shows world is not ready for next pandemic

As the world slowly recovers from one of the worst pandemics in human history and the real social and economic effects of public health responses to Covid-19 come to bear, there will be many lessons learned. Humanity will have to understand what exactly happened, where we got it right, and where we went wrong.

If there is a consensus among scientists about anything, it’s that we have seen an increasing number of infectious disease outbreaks – particularly zoonoses, or diseases transmitted to humans from animals – and that the next pandemic is coming. It might even be worse than Covid-19.

One thing we got wrong is our attitude towards and treatment of loneliness. Even before Covid-19, we knew loneliness was extremely common, affecting 18-40 per cent of people across the globe. We also knew that loneliness was a major health risk factor, increasing the risk for cardiovascular disease, diabetes, depression, suicide and early mortality. We did not, however, understand how bad it can actually be.

You feel lonely when the social relations you expect to have do not align with the social relations you perceive you have. This is not a wholly adequate definition of loneliness, but it is the one most commonly used. You can thus feel lonely in the middle of a bustling street in Kowloon, for example, or feel in solitude – meaning that you have a positive and productive experience of aloneness – even while hiking alone on Lamma Island.

Social isolation is the objective experience of aloneness, and it only partially correlates with loneliness. That is to say, social isolation increases your chances of feeling lonely, but you can be lonely without being socially isolated.