Surge in loneliness one of the most tragic legacies of lockdown

Among the most insidious and widespread harms from lockdowns has been the atomisation of communities. People were virtually confined to their homes for weeks at a time for almost two years: threatened with arrest for going out, often too frightened to do so anyway thanks to bloodcurdling government propaganda. Tocqueville summed up the consequences of such isolation: Each person, withdrawn into himself, behaves as though he is a stranger to the destiny of all the others. His children and his good friends constitute for him the whole of the human species. As for his transactions with his fellow citizens, he may mix among them, but he sees them not; he touches them, but he does not feel then; he exists only in himself and for himself alone. And if on these terms there remains in his mind a sense of family, there no longer remains a sense of society.