microblog
“Social” versus “physical” distance
Paul Ingraham • ARCHIVEDMicroblog posts are archived and rarely updated. In contrast, most long-form articles on PainScience.com are updated regularly over the years (see updates page).
The term “social distancing” was hijacked by the COVID-19 pandemic. It used to exclusively refer to the chasms between social groups and classes, the many kinds of distance between rich and poor, black and white, men and women, and so on.

Lonely dog is lonely.
Ideally, we would speak of the need for increase physical distance to protect each other from an infectious disease, while we try to actually reduce social distance to protect each other from other kinds of health problems! (And some injustice while we’re at it.)
I’ve added this point to this article, which continues to evolve: Chronic Pain and Inequality: The role of racism, sexism, queerphobia, and poverty in health and chronic pain.