Could relaxing still home and cooking your own meals reduce activity-causing heart attacks? It’s a trope in the North-East that middle aged men die shoveling snow.
Yeah, amazes me how many people think everyone is just relaxing at home playing Animal Crossing with paid time off wondering why we can't stay in quarantine indefinitely.
No country avoids lockdown. It happens controlled or uncontrolled. When control is back, everyone open up again. Nobody wants these adverse side-effects, and that they may be worse than the virus is nothing new. Our plight as society is find ways to cope with it and prepare better.
Possibly in the short term - in the long term the quarantine is likely going to increase heart disease due to people having more sedentary life styles... It's quite likely this is just a result of the math of going to a hospital shifting - a lot of folks decide not to go to the hospital with minor chest pain due to other obligations[1] and the addition of the outbreak likely adds to the reasons not to go to the hospital.
1. Don't do this, go to the hospital if you feel something different in your chest.
As a counter anecdote, I know many people that only leave their house a few times per week, including for walks. They are definitely more sedentary now.
Anecdotally, around my town the lower number of drivers on the road seems to be causing those who remain to feel like traffic laws don't matter. I can't even count how many times I have seen blatant "it's red but there's no traffic so I'll just go" behaviors, along with ridiculous speeding and lane changing. Doesn't help that the police essentially announced that they won't be looking for crime anymore.
I live in Boston and drive every day still. This is anecdotal - but I've seen the same amount of bad driving as ever (largely around merging, roundabouts, and turn signal usage) but now it's at a significantly higher speed because on I-95 and I-93 you can easily hit 85 mph instead of the customary 45 mph the whole way during rush hour.
I don't have any data, but I imagine that explains the similar serious accident rate.
one possible counterpoint: couples in healthy relationships could still be going out more, whereas those in dysfunctional ones might be fighting more due to more proximity or exascerbated economic hardship
That and I would suspect that people are eating more "junk", or carbs mixed with sugar and fat. I know I depression-ate out of my prepper stash for the first few weeks.
On the other hand, I think many folks are under a lot more stress in the current economic situation. That might have negative public health implications.
For the first few days maybe, but eventually you'll be throwing the frying pan at your others. Add lack of exercise, fresh air and there you have it. People also go nuts
They are at home, watching their debt grow and wondering how they will be able to find a new job to pay their bills.