Irish Examiner view: We must combat loneliness 'virus'

A ban on house visits is likely to hit the elderly hardest. File picture: PA

The Government’s decision to ban all house — and, strangely, garden — visits nationwide to curb the spread of coronavirus will come as a blow to the many thousands who already feel isolated by the series of unprecedented restrictions imposed since March.

The corrosive effect of that isolation has underlined the presence of another unseen virus circulating widely in our communities — loneliness.

It is a good time to recall that cocooning, a cosy-sounding word, was anything but comfortable for so many of our over-70s who felt old, vulnerable, and so alone during lockdown. A ban on house visits is likely to hit the elderly hardest.

However, loneliness does not just affect older people. It sweeps in under the closed hall doors of people of all ages, and not necessarily just those who live on their own.

How many business owners fighting to survive, artists and musicians without work, women and men living in violent homes, patients waiting for cancelled treatments or workers in bedroom ‘offices’ are suffering because social connection — the lifeblood of our humanity — has come to be seen as a vector of disease?

For once, though, we do not have to rely on a Government initiative or a financial package to address the crisis. We can do that by invoking the solidarity of lockdown and remembering that it is still possible to reach out to others, even while remaining apart.