With community lockdowns necessitated by the coronavirus pandemic severing many links between people, “addressing social isolation may be as important to health as the most powerful medicines we need to ultimately develop for COVID-19,” say Commonwealth Fund experts writing today in The Hill. 

One in four elderly Americans not in a long-term care facility lives alone, note the Fund’s David Blumenthal, M.D., Gretchen Jacobson, and Tanya Shah. Many live at great distance from family members, and nearly half don’t have a home internet connection.

“Under the best of circumstances, these conditions can lead to loneliness, and now in this period of forced distancing, it is even more likely and more dangerous,” they say, pointing to the elevated risk isolated elders face from heart disease, cancer, stroke, dementia, and other chronic maladies.

Read their essay to find out what steps federal agencies and Congress can take to close critical gaps in our social safety net.