The coronavirus pandemic may be officially over, but loneliness is still devastating New Yorkers

NEW YORK — Gloria Besser has been on her own since COVID took her husband early in the pandemic.

Mike died in a nursing home in April 2020 and since he’s been gone, there really isn’t anyone else she can talk to about her problems or frustrations. She misses chatting about the good times, too. She feels she can’t talk to her two children or friends in the same way.

Sometimes, with no where else to turn, she grabs a coffee mug that has Mike’s picture on it and has a conversation with him, in spirit at least.

“It’s not like it was before,” Besser said. “I tell myself, ‘It is what it is.’ And I talk to the mug with his picture on it a lot.”

The worst of the COVID pandemic may be over, according to the federal government and the World Health Organization — but it has left deep scars.

The pandemic kept older adults at home, eroded their support systems, killed their friends and distanced them from loved ones. And now, after three precious years have passed, many are struggling to get back to their pre-pandemic lives and to cope with the loneliness that has endured.

New Yorkers, especially the elderly, are more lonely and socially disconnected than ever.

New York City was COVID’s epicenter. Older adults were among the hardest-hit populations, dying at higher rates than any other age group. Nearly two million city dwellers lost at least one person close to them to COVID in the first 18 months of the pandemic, according to city data.

“Loneliness is not just an unfortunate side effect of the human condition,” said Diane Meier, a professor of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine at Mount Sinai. “It is directly linked to the development of depression, functional impairment, meaning not being able to take care of yourself, and cognitive impairment.

“And because it’s linked to those conditions, it is also linked to mortality.”

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