Alone again: The epidemic we cannot afford to ignore

Writer and Economist Noreena Hertz on the dangers of loneliness, technology, and the importance of feeling connected even during lockdown

Loneliness can be worse for our health than smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

IN March of this year, Noreena Hertz was about to emerge from two-and-a-half years of semi-isolation, researching and writing a book on the epidemic of loneliness. 

The irony is not lost on her that just as she was about to deliver the fruits of her labour, the Covid pandemic and ensuing lockdown intervened, resulting in a previously inconceivable and literal embodiment of the isolation she writes about in her book,  The Lonely Century.