New Jersey is one of only two states that has included smoking among the high-risk medical conditions that make people eligible for the Covid-19 vaccine.
Readers discuss social isolation as a serious public health issue.
Jan. 14, 2021
To the Editor:
I applaud you for calling attention to loneliness as a public health issue. Having studied loneliness at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, I am concerned that weighing damage from prolonged isolation on one hand with the risks of Covid-19 on the other is a choice between Scylla and Charybdis.
However, this conundrum is not limited to nursing homes. All of us have felt the pain of separation in the past nine months, and loneliness was deemed an epidemic before that. One national study reported that 61 percent of adults were lonely.
Eligible only in some counties. Data is as of Jan. 14.
Sources: State and county health departments.
The changing vaccine rollout in many states, which matches a new federal appeal this week that all people over 65 not just those in long-term care facilities should be prioritized, was embraced by many older people, who have been the most vulnerable to Covid-19 and have been waiting eagerly for vaccinations and a return to normal life. But the sudden availability to so many more people also caused a deluge of problems as people tried to figure out whether their state was now allowing them to get shots, how to sign up, and where to go.
[Here’s how you can get the
.]
Laura Engle, 78, lives alone in an apartment in Midtown Manhattan. She uses a walker and has a chronic lung disease. She is exactly the kind of person who most needs a coronavirus vaccine.
And yet, she has found it impossible to make an appointment and has become lost in the confusing system set up by the city and the state.
Computer-literate, she navigated New York City’s vaccine finder page on Monday, found the closest provider and sent an email with her name and number to set up an appointment. When no one called, she reached out to the urgent care’s corporate office, which told her to wait.