Richard Collins: What zebrafish can tell us about lockdown

In many religious traditions, isolation in the wilderness is deemed good for soul and body.

Zebrafish

“SOCIALISING is good for people’s mental health and wellbeing,” say Hande Tunbak and Mireya Vazquez-Prada of University College London. Prolonged isolation, they claim, can damage your health and, paradoxically, “loneliness often results in even lower desire for social contact, leading to further isolation”.

Some quite normal people, however, prefer to be alone and avoid social interaction wherever possible. The Scottish sailor Alexander Selkirk, who spent over four years alone on an island in the Pacific, showed no ill-effects afterwards.