Mental Health and COVID 19

While world leaders are focusing to manage the physical risk with vaccines, however, mental health is an aspect that has been impacting the psyche of most people.

New challenges have come up with the pandemic. Virtual homeschooling, staying safe, financial hardships, remote working, and coping with the sickness seems to be the prolonged scene.

Isolation has led to loneliness and it has been hitting people of all ages. Children and youth have been missing opportunities for social development and are in confusion about their latest plan for abroad study.

Many people are not able to work from home. Many have to use public transport. As the pandemic has stalled economic activity all around the world, employers have losing revenue, and employees have been losing jobs and getting pay cuts.  Job loss and pay cuts mean missing on saving, investments, child care, and other expenses.

“This pandemic crisis has significantly transformed the working environment, resulting in high-pressure work, and unfavorable and demanding interactions among health workers,” writes a research paper titled ‘Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on socioeconomic and mental health aspects in Nepal’ published in July 2020.

Apart from this, there comes a task to manage the fear of contracting the virus and worry about our closed ones, especially those who are vulnerable to the virus.

The paper writes that also the COVID 19 recovered patients upon returning home are socially avoided and discriminated against, leading to moral support.

Cured patients upon returning home are socially avoided and discriminated against, leading to a decrease in moral support. Stigma can negatively affect clients searching for medical care at a time when they are at their most vulnerable stage.

“The physical aspects of the pandemic are really visible,” said Lisa Carlson, the immediate past president of the American Public Health Association and an executive administrator at the Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta to CNN. “We have supply shortages and economic stress, fear of illness, all of our disrupted routines, but there’s a real grief in all of that.”

Reference: BBC, WHO, ‘Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on socioeconomic and mental health aspects in Nepal’ research paper

Photo source: CNN