With their age alone placing senior citizens in the high-risk group for COVID-19, casual interaction has gone missing from many seniors’ lives.

HOPEDALE — Tom Fee, 87, sat in a shady spot on his side lawn late Monday morning, chatting.

“I’m fairly active. I’m not bored,” he said. “I’ve got the piano I can bang on …. I’ve got a lot of woodworking I can do … I’m busy.”

Six feet away, wearing a red mask and purple gloves, and in a blue folding chair, sat Hopedale Council on Aging outreach coordinator Nancy Mosher. While she asked a few questions in regards to Fee’s well-being, the conversation between the two was largely casual — a recap of the week between friends.

“We’re pretty much concentrated on the 80-and-over set, and people who live on their own,” Mosher said, of the Council on Aging’s in-person visits during the pandemic. “We’ve done it all. We’ve delivered toilet paper, we’ve delivered groceries, we’ve delivered books, with masks and gloves on.”

With their age alone placing senior citizens in the high-risk group for COVID-19, casual interaction has gone missing from many seniors’ lives. In-person community programs and senior centers have shut their doors for fear of spreading the virus.

“They were so used to coming in here and meeting their friends,” said Susan Clark, director of the Milford Council on Aging. “It was a social center … We created such a hub here, and when we shut our doors, so many people were like ‘Now what are we going to do?’”

Many seniors are already at risk of social isolation, more so than younger people as they face issues like not being able to drive and living alone.

“The thing we worry about (is) people are isolated and how that affects their psyche,” said Carole Mullen, director of the Hopedale Council on Aging. “But we also worry about people not moving. A lot of them are not getting that exercise. … That mind body connection is really, really critical to us.”

To combat isolation and bring back some of the sense of community lost when the buildings closed, local councils on aging have had to get creative.

“A lot of studies … show people who have been isolated from others, they really decline cognitively,” said Grace O’Donnell, director of elder services at the Callahan Center in Framingham, citing  increased anxiety, depression and more. “As much as we can try to connect with people in other ways that either involve social distancing or give people an option to involve and see one another, that’s what we’re really trying to do.”

That means senior advocates have deployed everything from phone calls and careful in-person visits like Mosher’s to Fee, to local cable television and YouTube shows to phone conferencing to Zoom meetings and Facebook Live.

“We’re trying to create a senior center on different platforms,” Clark said. “What works for some of the younger seniors doesn’t work for some of the older seniors.”

A huge part of the effort across the region is in-person visits like Mosher’s, as well as hundreds of phone calls each week. Many council on aging employees never stopped working, even when the pandemic first shuttered public buildings.

“The senior center in Hopedale, employees have not skipped a beat,” Mullen said. “We have been here every single day since the pandemic started, working our hours, doing what we do.”

Transportation and meal services — both pickup and delivery — continue to be available through many local senior centers. A few allow for visits by appointment only for certain services, but a lot of business — like fuel assistance and counseling — is now conducted over the phone.

“We’re here,” Mullen said. “If someone has a problem, they call us.”

Several councils on aging have partnered with local cable stations, broadcasting more shows more often. In Milford, seniors can turn on the television and check out a local cooking demonstration, gardening tips, an interior decorating tutorial and a variety of fitness classes, twice a day.

In Marlborough, seniors combine curbside pickups at the senior center with local cable shows, like picking up plants and then tuning in to learn how to plant and care for them.

“The reason we decided to use cable is the vast, vast majority (of our seniors) have local cable,” said Trish Pope, director of the Marlborough Council on Aging. “A lot of older adults don’t have computer technology or equipment. … Our book club is on there. We have a drumming circle. … We’re trying to do a lot of things.”

On Tuesday morning, nearly a dozen seniors logged onto Zoom for one of Rebecca Trudeau’s live fitness classes.

The Zoom room opened a few minutes before the class’ 10 a.m. start time, and the group chatted and laughed from their respective living rooms, kitchens and basements.

“It’s perfect,” said Lauren Wilton, who took Trudeau’s class Tuesday. “The senior center caters to a high-risk community, and this is the safest possible thing you could do to help the seniors stay fit. There’s zero risk here.”

Trudeau, a fitness instructor who has long worked with senior centers in the area, hosts several different types of Zoom classes each week, as well as monthly challenges, and records classes for Facebook and local cable.

“The first time I did it, I cried, because I hadn’t seen them in person” in a long time, Trudeau remembered.

She always opens class early and leaves the room available for a while afterward, so people can catch up.

“Afterward, everyone grabs their cup of coffee and we (talk),” Trudeau said of some of her classes. “It’s just hysterical. It’s … like we never were separated, and we all get to see each other and chit-chat.”

A few of Trudeau’s students said that while they’d like to return to in-person classes, the technology has advantages aside from keeping them safe from the coronavirus. Those include privacy, better accessibility for those with an internet connection, scheduling flexibility and the eliminated drive time.

“I see it as a silver lining of the pandemic,” said Jessica Traiger, a Milford native who took Trudeau’s class from her Florida living room Tuesday morning. “I like Zoom, but nothing replaces socializing in person.”

Trudeau said the first couple weeks she spent a big chunk of time helping her students learn the new technology, which was new to her, too. Her daughter helped her set up a home studio, with cameras, lighting and backdrops.

“Zoom was a bit of a learning curve for all of us,” said O’Donnell, in Framingham. “None of the staff at the center had used Zoom prior to the center closing down.”

Framingham’s center has two paid accounts, and local seniors use it to talk about sports, sit in on support groups, meditate with an instructor, and even play bridge. Anyone who needs help setting up can call the Callahan Center and ask for a phone walk-through. O’Donnell said she’d welcome more volunteers for that service.

Some councils are slowly testing out in-person visits to their centers again.

“Just today, we had our first outdoor aerobics session,” O’Donnell said, noting that the group was limited to 11 people plus an instructor to keep the group safe. “We had an intrepid group of people taking part in that.”

Milford recently built a gazebo behind its North Bow Street senior center, so a few groups have been able to meet outside and out of the sun. Clark said she’s allowing one small group per day inside the building, so she can clean properly in between meetings.

“We’re just doing the best we can with what we have,” Clark said. “They’re very lonely. They feel very isolated.”

Several centers are becoming more invested in their remote plans — including adding Zoom classes if they hadn’t already — as well as focusing on safe ways to meet in person, as the reality of more months of social distancing sets in.

“I hesitate to say this, but this could be a much longer time frame than people are anticipating,” O’Donnell said. “The more we can get people embracing technology as much as possible, (the better).”

Back in Hopedale, Tom Fee said he’s living his life the best he can for now.

“There’s a few restrictions. You can live with that,” he said.

Alison Bosma can be reached at 508-634-7582 or abosma@wickedlocal.com. Find her on Twitter at @AlisonBosma.