The findings suggest recovery from the pandemic may take a long time and could affect people’s view of their relationships over time. “There were cumulative effects from the social isolation,” said David Lazar, a professor of political science and computer sciences at Northeastern and one of the study authors. To determine social isolation, the researchers asked each person about the number of people they could count on to care for them if they got sick, to lend them money, to talk to about a problem if they were depressed, or to help them find a job. Someone who said they had only one person, or no one they could turn to, in a given category was considered socially isolated. The researchers polled a total of 185,223 individuals over 12 different surveys from April 2020 to June 2021.

Source: New York Times July 08, 2021 17:26 UTC