When I was doing obits, which I did for three years, I noticed the phenomenon of a spouse dying a few months apart was very real. It's called the Widowhood Effect, and it's usually chalked up to "death from a broken heart."

I think there is a lot more to it.

We end up being each other's support networks, especially as we age. And men, in particular, tend to lean on their partners very heavily for emotional labor.

When a partner dies, suddenly that support network is subtracted.

I can't help but wonder how many die because they got their pills mixed up, or variations of this, which wouldn't have happened if the support network that was their spouse was around.

And then there are the things that accompany death -- grief, depression, not eating, etc. These things can always be fatal, but moreso when you are frail and even the slightest interruption in something like your diet can cause a cataclysmic chain reaction.

And a lot of elderly people have an extended support network, consisting of their families, their places of worship, their peer groups, their communities.

All this is gone now. I worry for them.

I think this should be considered plague issue. If they die, it won't be directly from coronavirus, but coronavirus definitely caused it.