The an­nounce­ment of the new pub­lic health re­stric­tion mea­sures on April 30 to curb the re­cent surge in the trans­mis­sion of the COVID-19 virus re­it­er­ates the need for re­strain on so­cial in­ter­ac­tion es­pe­cial­ly in the pub­lic do­main.

The log­ic of the mea­sures is keep­ing with sim­i­lar prac­tices in oth­er coun­tries such as Bar­ba­dos, Ja­maica, the US and Eng­land when spikes oc­curred. The down­side to these mea­sures is a dis­rup­tion of pre-COVID-19 tak­en for grant­ed nor­mal so­cial prac­tices and be­hav­iour.

Beach­es, malls, gyms, cin­e­mas, restau­rants, and casi­nos have been closed un­til May 23. These fa­cil­i­ties do not on­ly of­fer spe­cif­ic prod­ucts and or ser­vices but pro­vide a space for so­cial, emo­tion­al and psy­cho­log­i­cal con­nec­tions, re­con­nec­tions and re­lax­ation.

The num­ber of COVID-19 cas­es and by ex­ten­sion the be­hav­iour of the pop­u­la­tion over the next three weeks or there­about will de­ter­mine whether these fa­cil­i­ties will be al­lowed to re­open and un­der what con­di­tions.

For the mo­ment out­door sport­ing ac­tiv­i­ties - run­ning, walk­ing, cy­cling - are per­mis­si­ble.

Ac­cord­ing to the Cen­tre for Dis­ease Con­trol (CDC) mod­er­ate to in­tense aer­o­bic ac­tiv­i­ty such as brisk walk­ing and run­ning can re­sult in sev­er­al ben­e­fits: Im­prove­ment in brain health; Weight man­age­ment; Re­duc­ing dis­ease; Strength­en­ing of bones and mus­cles; Re­duc­tion of men­tal stress.

Phys­i­cal in­ac­tiv­i­ty among the ado­les­cent pop­u­la­tion should not be tak­en like­ly by par­ents/guardians. Phys­i­cal in­ac­tiv­i­ty is com­pound­ed by poor eat­ing habits - heavy con­sump­tion of sug­ar-based and fast foods - and seden­tary lifestyles.

If al­lowed to de­vel­op unchecked, the al­ready ex­ist­ing prob­lems of hy­per­ten­sion, type 2 di­a­betes and obe­si­ty among the old­er pop­u­la­tion can be­come an alarm­ing con­cern among the younger pop­u­la­tion.

The costs to so­ci­ety will not on­ly be in terms of health but al­so eco­nom­i­cal­ly with re­gards to for­gone pro­duc­tive ex­pen­di­ture. Eat­ing un­health­ily may in­crease dur­ing a pe­ri­od of height­ened pub­lic health re­stric­tions as a means of com­pen­sa­tion for so­cial sep­a­ra­tion and as­so­ci­at­ed emo­tion­al and psy­cho­log­i­cal stress.

How­ev­er, all is not lost as par­tic­i­pa­tion in ac­tiv­i­ties such as walk­ing, run­ning, and cy­cling still of­fer great op­por­tu­ni­ties for achiev­ing the mul­ti-faceted ben­e­fits of phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty. For in­stance, per­sons can make walk­ing and run­ning com­pet­i­tive, by reg­is­ter­ing for any of sev­er­al vir­tu­al events and or en­gage in non-com­pet­i­tive fam­i­ly fun ac­tiv­i­ties such as kite fly­ing and bik­ing.

At the end of the day, the onus is on par­ents/guardians, sports clubs and so­cial groups to en­gage cre­ative­ly in phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty de­spite the cur­rent pan­dem­ic. Fail­ure to do so may re­sult in mount­ing un­de­sir­able phys­i­cal, so­cial and men­tal is­sues.