I’VE SEEN THE LOCKDOWNS AND THE DAMAGE DONE: Alcohol-related deaths in the US spiked more than 25% in the first year of the pandemic, study shows.

“We’re not surprised. It’s unfortunate, but we sort of expected to see something like this,” Aaron White, lead author of the study and a neuroscientist at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, said.

“It’s not uncommon for people to drink more when they’re under more duress, and obviously, the pandemic brought a lot of added stress to people’s lives. In addition to that, it reduced a lot of the normal outlets people have for coping with stress, [like] social support and access to gyms.”

Social isolation and media hysteria take a toll, but they have as much to do with a dysfunctional social response as with Covid itself.