I desperately miss human touch. Science may explain why | Diana Spechler

For people who live alone, lockdown means touch starvation' as we go days without hugs, handshakes or other contact

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My friend Hannah tells me her therapist said: A person should be hugged 10 times a day."

For many of us, that's now unsafe. It was even unlikely before. Pre-quarantine, I was one of 35.7 million Americans who lived alone. My daily hug average hovered around two. Maybe four. Sometimes zero. I'm not a mom or a girlfriend or a self-identified hugger". My last hug transpired in the surreal middle of March, as toilet paper lost all meaning and we learned a foreign language: N95, PPE, Wuhan, Covid, shelter in place. States of emergency were declared. I kept misreading pandemic" as panic". I hugged my niece without fanfare.