“I’ve never felt more single,” said Eleanor Morgan in Mondays Guardian.

I was transfixed reading the two-page article as hungrily, and as ravenously as wild animals do when they devour their first taste of raw meat.

Everyone knows and understands the reasoning and logic, behind the lockdown, washing our hands safe distancing and the wearing of masks. Much has been written about how isolation affects the mental wellbeing of those amongst us, who are vulnerable and being looked after within our community.

But I believe the repercussions from this continuous and essential lockdown will have far reaching consequences, that could well be felt, long after all this is but a mere nightmare, that we have lived through.

Couples, and extended families, have the luxury of what the government and scientist refer to as the ‘bubble’, not for them the yearning for the ‘touch ‘

When we touch one another, we help to fulfill some of the body’s needs. Professor Francis McGlone, the neuroscientist from John Moores University, is a leader in this field of affective touch, so a lot of what she said resonated with me.

In my opinion, people are happy to confess to ‘feeling lonely’, as that seems a socially acceptable thing to admit to. But if you delve into this, you will know the craving that single people along with patients in hospitals and nursing homes need, is touch. Plain and simple human contact, this releases oxytocin and dopamine, when that happens the cortisone subsides.

Thankfully, there are substitutes for the bewildering array of emotions that are unleashed, when you realise the virus is still around so another day devoid of tactile communication with your loved ones is all you can look forward to.

I personally resort to sugar laden products, I mean why have a biscuit or two, when you can finish off the whole packet?

Others close to me, who socially drank only at weekends, now do so during the week as they have found it is their way of coping with being shut in.

Tobacconist will not go broke any time soon if sales of tobacco and cigarettes are anything to go by.

Ask any mother with a crying baby, if loving and touching is as essential as food?

Ask anyone working in a hospice whether touching a patient is as important as medicine. Touching is loving we need that more than ever now.