{"id":6045,"date":"2024-03-12T15:16:26","date_gmt":"2024-03-12T20:16:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=6045"},"modified":"2024-03-12T15:16:30","modified_gmt":"2024-03-12T20:16:30","slug":"masks-work-telehealth-is-here-to-stay-and-other-health-lessons-weve-learned-since-the-pandemic-started-4-years-ago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2024\/03\/12\/masks-work-telehealth-is-here-to-stay-and-other-health-lessons-weve-learned-since-the-pandemic-started-4-years-ago\/","title":{"rendered":"Masks work, telehealth is here to stay \u2014 and other health lessons we&#8217;ve learned since the pandemic started 4 years ago"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"panel body-content\"><div class=\"panel__container\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.yahoo.com\/lifestyle\/masks-work-telehealth-is-here-to-stay--and-other-health-lessons-weve-learned-since-the-pandemic-started-4-years-ago-001440922.html\">Yahoo News<\/a> This month marks the four-year anniversary of the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S. During the months on lockdown, millions of Americans were grappling with uncertainty, with worries ranging from becoming ill and being separated from loved ones to facing unemployment \u2014 while simultaneously helping kids with virtual learning, sanitizing the groceries and searching high and low for a package of toilet paper. Even though the days of social distancing are behind us, some of the impacts of the pandemic \u2014 both positive and negative \u2014 have been long-term. Here, mental health professionals break down some of the important lessons we\u2019ve learned since 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Lesson No. 1: Loneliness is detrimental to our health<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The pandemic both exacerbated and shined a spotlight on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC10218178\/#:~:text=The%20COVID%2D19%20pandemic%20brought,feelings%20of%20loneliness%20%5B12%5D.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">how many Americans were struggling with loneliness<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/emotional-wellbeing\/social-connectedness\/loneliness.htm#:~:text=Loneliness%20is%20feeling%20alone%20or,of%20friends%20can%20feel%20lonely.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">feeling isolated<\/a>\u00a0and \u201clike you do not have meaningful or close relationships or a sense of belonging.\u201d In a 2023 report, the U.S. surgeon general shared that 10 years ago, he didn\u2019t view loneliness as a public health problem, but learned through research that\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.hhs.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/surgeon-general-social-connection-advisory.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">being socially disconnected is harmful<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 its impact on mortality being equivalent to \u201csmoking up to 15 cigarettes a day.\u201d Loneliness is linked to a higher risk of cardiovascular disease, stroke, dementia, depression, anxiety and premature death, according to the report. This led to the surgeon general declaring the epidemic of loneliness a \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.hhs.gov\/about\/news\/2023\/05\/03\/new-surgeon-general-advisory-raises-alarm-about-devastating-impact-epidemic-loneliness-isolation-united-states.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">public health crisis<\/a>\u201d in 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.yahoo.com\/lifestyle\/masks-work-telehealth-is-here-to-stay--and-other-health-lessons-weve-learned-since-the-pandemic-started-4-years-ago-001440922.html\">Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yahoo News This month marks the four-year anniversary of the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S. During the months on lockdown, millions of Americans were grappling with uncertainty, with worries ranging from becoming ill and being separated from loved ones to facing unemployment \u2014 while simultaneously helping kids with virtual learning, sanitizing the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-psychological-and-sociological-impact"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6045"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6045\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6046,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6045\/revisions\/6046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}