Covid: Loneliness a 'bigger health risk than smoking or obesity'
NHS prescriptions for gardening and dancing are "vitally needed" to help tackle rising levels of loneliness after lockdown, people suffering from isolation have said.
Alice Gray, a 29-year-old science communicator and producer from Cardiff who struggled with loneliness during lockdown, said social prescribing was "vitally needed".
She added that loneliness could often be stereotyped as affecting older people, but she spent long periods in isolation during the pandemic, even spending the last birthday of her 20s alone because of social distancing rules.
"It's not only incredibly isolating, but it's very stigmatised and often associated with the older generation - despite more young people struggling with loneliness. Three times as many young people deal with loneliness compared to older people."
After spending many months entirely on her own, Ms Gray said she would personally benefit from something that would "enable me to get on a path out of loneliness".
