Quarantining of people infected with the new coronavirus and their family members is very effective in reducing the numer of COVID-19 diseases, a group of researchers argued in an earlier piece.
They noted that school closures plus quarantine comes second, while workplace distancing combined with quarantine is the third-most effective way–all this, even as a combination of the three methods provide the best solution.
However, even as most people acknowledge that self- and imposed-quarantines are necessary steps to battle the COVID-19 pandemic, some researchers highlight the downside of social distancing–it thwarts the natural human impulse to huddle together in times of danger.
In an essay that appears in the journal Current Biology, an interdisciplinary team of authors insist that coping with this contradiction of social distancing as opposed to huddling together, “is the biggest challenge we now face”.
The team includes Professor Ophelia Deroy, who holds a Chair in the Philosophy of Mind at Ludwigs-Maximilians Universitaet in Munich (LMU) and is affiliated with the Munich Neuroscience Center.
Danger brings us together
Deroy and her co-authors Chris Frith (a well-known social neurobiologist based at University College London) and Guillaume Dezecache (a social psychologist at the Université Clermont Auvergne) emphasize that when faced with danger, people instinctively and actively seek closer social contacts.
“When people are afraid, they seek safety in numbers. But in the present situation, this impulse increases the risk of infection for all of us. This is the basic evolutionary conundrum that we describe,” says Dezecache.
The demands now being made by governments to self-isolate and follow social distancing guidelines are fundamentally at odd with our social instincts, and therefore represent a serious challenge for most people. “After all,” says Deroy, “social contacts are not an ‘extra’, which we are at liberty to refuse.
They are part of what we call normal.” The essay’s authors therefore contend that, because social distancing stands in opposition to our natural reaction to impending hazards, our social inclinations – rather than antisocial reactions to rationally recognized threats – now risk exacerbating the danger.
Social media providing an escape route
We need to revise what the Internet can offer, says Deroy. The argument goes as follows. In the pre-pandemic world, the Internet and social media were often looked upon as being decidedly unsocial.
But in times like the present, they provide an acceptable and effective alternative to physical contact — insofar as they enable social interactions in the absence of physical contiguity.
Social media make it possible for large numbers of people to reach out virtually to neighbours, relatives, friends and other contacts.
“Our innate inclinations are cooperative rather than egoistic. But access to the Internet makes it possible for us to cope with the need for social distancing,” says Chris Frith.
“How well, and for how long, our need for social contact can be satisfied by social media remains to be seen,” says Deroy.
Recommendations for policy-makers
Deroy and her co-authors do have two important recommendations for policy-makers.
First of all, they must acknowledge that the demand for social distancing is not only politically highly unusual: It runs counter to the evolved structure of human cognition.
Secondly, nowadays, free access to the Internet is not only a prerequisite for freedom of speech. In the present situation, it is also making a positive contribution to public health.
“This is an important message, given that the most vulnerable sections of society are often those who, owing to poverty, age and illness, have few social contacts,” concludes Deroy.
