Toll

The pandemic kills in many ways.

We know the virus kills when it messes up our lungs. We know the virus kills when our body's immune cells can't stop setting fire on the fighting cascade. One of the yet-to-be-told stories about the untold toll is the pandemic's effects on the uninfected persons.

More often, it's a difficult trade-off between tackling pandemic and keeping others healthy. A back-and-forth between the two. Back and forth, back and forth: the sweet spot isn't easy to define. What are those stories of untold toll about? Running out of sleep after unbearable working hours. Running out of drugs like hydroxychloroquine after the misguided use to treat coronavirus disease. Running out of teaching opportunities for medical students, or even kindergarten students.

Or simply running out of friends or hugging.

Think about loneliness and social isolation. Social distancing is often the magic word for anti-pandemic measures. On the flip side, we can be truly alone (subjectively) and isolated (objectively). All that is bad news, and more so for a centenarian who can go downhill quickly, because loneliness messes with our stress response. Cortisol, the stress hormone, jumps higher after our connection with others are being cut off. Worse still, the risk of death goes up. And yes, you read that correctly: increased risk of death. It isn't a question of objective or subjective social isolation. It doesn't matter, according to a meta-analysis. Objective social isolation may raise the risk of death by 29 percent, and reported loneliness ups it by 26 percent.

That means we need friends. Don't let the coronavirus steal yours.