Talcott WJ, Yu JB, Gross CP, et al. - In view of the described higher baseline risk for reporting social isolation among patients who are elderly or have disabilities who are particularly encouraged to practice social distancing due to their higher risk of severe COVID-19 infection, researchers herein investigated if the pandemic and social distancing measures have negatively influenced perceptions of social connectedness among these high-risk patients. An in-person, nationally representative survey of Medicare beneficiaries, named the Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey, is sponsored by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. The COVID-19 Summer 2020 Supplement data gathered from June 10, 2020, to July 15, 2020, were used in this study. Among Medicare beneficiaries, more than one-third described perception of feeling less socially connected to friends and family since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. The negative association of the pandemic with perceptions of social connectedness was more frequently observed among Medicare beneficiaries who were women, had higher incomes, were not of Black non-Hispanic race/ethnicity, and had a history of cancer or depression. They observed a widespread likelihood of reporting reduced social connection nationally, and it was linked with practicing more social distancing measures