Fearmongers, virtue signalers and even a few otherwise well-intentioned people can’t get enough of telling other people what to do, and their favorite recent activity is reminding people about social distancing.

Usually this is done without thought for how human suffering and death is aggravated by these policies with little to no evidence that the outcomes they claim are achieved.

Over long periods of time, social isolation can increase the risk of a variety of health problems, including heart disease, depression, dementia, and even death. A 2015 meta-analysis of the scientific literature by Julianne Holt-Lunstad, a research psychologist at Brigham Young University, and colleagues determined that chronic social isolation increases the risk of mortality by 29%.

It’s not just the elderly who already suffer from a lack of sufficient social engagement who will be harmed, but also the tens of millions of Americans who suffer from mental illness.

 “Someone who is already having problems with, say, social anxiety, depression, loneliness, substance abuse, or other health problems is going to be particularly vulnerable.”

As with all top-down, centrally mandated schemes, the indiscriminate mass quarantines may slow the spread of infection, achieving the widely discussed ‘flatten the curve’ phenomenon, but will it actually increase the mortality rate among those who were otherwise not likely to contract, get sick from, or die of the virus?

Time will tell.

Read the entire article at Science Magazine here.

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