Dealing with this will not be a simple matter of allowing people to socialise once again. Because the myeloid feedback loop makes those affected more defensive and suspicious, the mere presence of others is not enough to restore the status quo. Something else is needed, too.
loop n.圈，环，环状物；循环，回路 v.（使）成环
restore v.修复；还原；归还
status quo 现状 status quo ante 原状；以前的状况
In search of that something Dr Cole carried out-this time in collaboration with Sonja Lyubomirsky, a psychologist at the University of California, Riverside- a series of experiments that encouraged healthy people to direct simple acts of kindness towards their fellow creatures: things like running an errand for an elderly neighbour or helping a colleague with a computer problem.
running an errand 跑腿
go on errands 出差
Participants had their blood drawn in order to examine their myeloid responses. Those directed to show kindness to others on a weekly basis had precisely the opposite gene-expression activity to that previously seen in the lonely by Dr Cole and Dr Cacioppo. Dr Lyubomirsky now picked up the baton.
baton n.接力棒；指挥棒；警棍
In collaboration with Dr Cole and with Megan Fritz, a colleague at Riverside, she repeated the study, but with a twist. Instead of looking only at participants' myeloid responses, she also asked them specific questions about loneliness.
As she and her colleagues reported to this year's conference of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, held in New Orleans in February, they found that in the case of loneliness, the saying about it being more blessed to give than to receive is true. Asking lonely people to perform acts of kindness to others significantly reduced the offerer's feelings of loneliness, as well as the myeloid response that drives inflammation.
Also, and perhaps portentously given the meeting's timing, Dr Fritz and Dr Lyubomirsky reported the preliminary results of a second study. This compared the effect on a lonely person's feelings of acts of kindness he or she performed face to face with those performed online: donating money to a gofundme effort, for example, or writing a thank-you note to a friend.
portentous adj.预兆的，凶兆的；自命不凡的，装腔作势的
The study's results suggest that online kindness has the same beneficial effect as the face-to-face variety. And that could help to address Dr Cole's fears of a post-covid loneliness epidemic. No doubt (though this was beyond the scope of these studies) merely having contact with others while staying in isolation is beneficial to those at risk of loneliness.
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