Elsevier has created a COVID-19 resource centre with free information in English and Mandarin on the novel coronavirus COVID-19. The COVID-19 resource centre is hosted on Elsevier Connect, the company's public news and information website. Elsevier hereby grants permission to make all its COVID-19-related research that is available on the COVID-19 resource centre-including this research content-immediately available in PubMed Central and other publicly funded repositories, such as the WHO COVID database with rights for unrestricted research re-use and analyses in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for free by Elsevier for as long as the COVID-19 resource centre remains active.

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The majority of the U.S. population has been under stay-at-home restrictions to reduce the spread of COVID-19 since March 2020. Over the first three months of restrictions, 3,121 U.S. adults completed the UCLA Loneliness Scale-3 and Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9). Despite relaxation of lockdowns and shelter-in-place orders over that time, loneliness scores increased significantly, particularly from April to May 2020, and appear to have plateaued by June. Loneliness was correlated with depression and suicidal ideation at all time points and was most prevalent among individuals who reported that they were still under community restrictions to socially isolate due to the novel coronavirus. Loneliness remains elevated despite the reopening of many communities.

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To reduce viral spread during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic, most communities across the U.S. engaged in some form of stay-at-home restrictions or lockdowns that limited social interaction and movement outside the home. To determine the effect of these restrictions on suicidal ideation, a total of 3,120 individuals completed the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) at one of three time points from April through June 2020. The percentage of respondents endorsing suicidal ideation was greater with each passing month for those under lockdown or shelter-in-place restrictions due to the novel coronavirus, but remained relatively stable and unchanged for those who reported no such restrictions. Public health policy and routine clinical care need to address the potential for increased suicidal thinking among those experiencing prolonged restrictions of normal social contact.

The U.S. vaccine campaign against COVID-19 began in December 2020, but many individuals seem reluctant to get vaccinated. During the first week of the vaccination campaign, we collected data from 1017 individuals with an online survey to identify factors that were associated with willingness to get the vaccine once it is available. Most participants (55.3%) were willing to get the vaccine, although 46.2% also expressed some fear of the vaccine. Political ideology was by far the most consistent predictor of both willingness to be vaccinated and fear of the vaccine, followed by participant sex, education level, income, and race/ethnicity. Our findings suggest that, for the vaccine campaign to be broadly supported and successful, it will be important for frontline healthcare workers to discuss the role of inoculation for COVID-19 in a manner consistent with each individual patient’s political and sociological worldview.