Abstract

Objective: To investigate the impacts of social distancing measures on human health, such as physical and mental illnesses. Study design: Questionnaire survey Methods: A 15-minute online-based questionnaire survey was conducted from 31 March, 2020 to 30 May, 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic in Bangladesh. Participants were asked to provide their perceptions on food habits changes, and physical and mental illnesses for recently imposed social distancing measures, such as stay-at-home, for overwhelming transmissions of coronavirus in various regions of Bangladesh. A focus was given to test the impacts of social distancing measures across categories of susceptible individuals and their age groups. The susceptible individuals were classified as non-COVID-19 patients and non-patient susceptible individuals. Results: Social distancing measures have considerable impacts on human health. The findings show that social distancing may not significantly impact on the food habits changes and physical fitness in the beginning of a pandemic, but may create huge impacts on mental illness, such as panic, anxiety and stress. Conclusions: Social distancing is an effective measure of controlling virus transmissions during a pandemic, but causes significant concerns of mental health for nonCOVID-19 susceptible individuals, particularly who are elderly in Bangladesh. Thus, ‘stay-at-home, but stay connected’ might be an alternative way of reducing this mental illness.