To the editor:

“Apart, not alone” should be our mantra throughout the COVID-19 crisis. While this pandemic has reminded us that human connection can spread illness, it’s also reminded us that human isolation can produce another public health threat: loneliness. In fact, loneliness was a public health crisis long before COVID-19, running like a dark thread through many issues like addiction, violence, anxiety and depression.

Throughout the past month Americans have been wrenched from routines and friends, the architecture of their lives dismantled. Its antidote, human connection, is something that we’re hardwired for — as we demonstrate every time we come together around a common purpose or crisis. Being connected to others gives us a stake in more than our own interests and increases our motivation to work together. History has shown us that collaborative, mutually supportive communities are the ones that survive and recover after disasters.

Yes, we need to physically distance ourselves to flatten the curve of this pandemic, but we also need social connectedness. We need to not be alone. We need to be together. Robert Frost once famously said that the “best way out is always through,” and I believe that. I also believe that the only way through is together. So let’s find ways to work with and for one another. Let’s find ways to serve and help one another, especially the most vulnerable among us. And let us make it out the only way we can: together.

Chris Orlando,

Lawrence