- Anika Dahal Acharya
The once in a century pandemic “ Corona Virus (COVID-19)” has made whole world to scuffle with the most threatening enemy of era where each and every individual are trying to survive with the threat that the virus has caused. Every expert is trying to understand the complex nature of this vicious virus; but they say there is still much to learn about the virus despite of more than 100 days of the outbreak. Death count has reached more than 1 lakh, while affected are more than 20 lakhs, still there is trial on the treatment strategies. No expert has predicted when this all chaos will end, amidst all this chaos one thing we can do is to stay home.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the virus a global health emergency and rated COVID-19 as a global risk of spread and impact as very high. According to WHO, Corona virus disease (COVID-19) is an infectious disease caused by a newly discovered corona virus It spreads primarily through droplets generated when an infected person coughs or sneezes, or through droplets of saliva or discharge from the nose. On December 31, 2019 WHO mentioned a mysterious pneumonia sickening dozens in China. Well first death from the virus was 11 days after WHO mentioned about it, named the virus as novel corona virus. Public health emergency of international concern was declared by WHO within 19 days from the first death. This is for the sixth time in the history. WHO officially changed their classification of the situation from a public health emergency of international concern to a pandemic on March 11.Due to the chain of transmission of the virus, on March 15,2020 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warned against large gathering more than 50 people including every events.
The spread of virus from person to person was so rapid that the countries with most affected with corono virus declared lockdown. Nepal reported first case of Covid 19 in the mid of January, 2020 after a student returned from Wuhan, China. The second case was reported in Kathmandu on 23rd March 2020. As of 17 April 2020, 28 additional cases were registered. The first case of local transmission was recorded on 4 April by a 34-year old woman from Kailali. A nationwide lockdown was imposed on 24 March, and is scheduled to end on 27 April.
As with other pandemics and new outbreaks of disease, COVID-19 has caused enormous psychosocial disturbances. The panic could arise out from persistent and unpredictable pandemic situations. Due to unpredictable nature of virus, there is only trial in the treatment plans, with no proper treatment strategies and no vaccination available, non pharmaceutical interventions are the sole ways to anticipate contaminations and they drastically disturb regular substantial habits, social interactions and financial trades.
The first pandemic of 21st century was severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), the 2003 outbreak of (SARS) stunned the world because it spread quickly from countries to countries, coming about in more than 8000 contaminations, with around 10% mortality, and an annihilating impact on neighborhood and territorial economies. Not only did it cause severe health problems but it also imposed a great psychological impact on the public. A study conducted in Taiwan during SARS outbreak showed 9.2% of the participants reported that their perceptions of life became more pessimistic following the SARS crisis. The prevalence of psychiatric morbidity was 11.7%.
Other pandemic that drew everyone’s attention was Ebola virus. The 2014–2016 outbreak in West Africa was the largest Ebola outbreak since the virus was first discovered in 1976. Misinformation and fabricated news about Ebola begin as soon as the outbreak, the myths caused havoc in people’s life. One of the foremost unpleasant occurrences happened in southeastern Guinea in September when six help specialists and two writers were killed by a horde of individuals and stuffed in a septic tank. The villagers feared the workers who were actually there to disinfect and educate were instead there to spread the disease. A survey conducted during Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone among general population showed that 48% of the population had any symptoms of anxiety and depression and 76% of population experienced any of post traumatic stress disorder symptoms.
Presently, an estimated 2.6 billion people, one third of world’s population is actually living under some form of lockdown or quarantine. The terrible unseen enemy of entire world “COVID-19” is a major explanation for this. The pandemic of 2019 COVID-19 and the social distancing steps introduced by several countries have caused disruption to everybody routines.
At this point, the pandemic has expanded its roots beyond just about each vicinity of lifestyles at this point. It's also influenced many other aspects, much worse than ravaging only medical chaos and destruction — the economy, is expected to come down for some time, and psychological health, is worsening with the increase of number of cases of pandemic as many others have thought.
An online survey during COVID-19 outbreak carried among general population of China revealed 53.8% of respondents rated the psychological impact of the outbreak as moderate or severe; 16.5% reported moderate to severe depressive symptoms; 28.8% reported moderate to severe anxiety symptoms; and 8.1% reported moderate to severe stress levels.
Lockdown, for most people, is exceptional, even though it does make us unexpectedly realize—just a little bit—what lack of freedom can be like. Lockdown for various people is worst, as an instance sufferer of domestic violence, being limited at domestic may be the worst aspect that would appear to them.
A recent review study carried to assess the psychological impact on quarantine revealed that individuals who are kept in isolation and quarantine experienced significant distress in the form of anxiety, anger, confusion and post-traumatic stress symptoms
A study conducted during SARS outbreak (2005) at Hongkong among quarantined people reported general psychological symptoms like emotional disturbance, depression, stress, low mood, irritability, insomnia, post-traumatic stress symptoms anger, and emotional exhaustion where 73% experienced low mood and 57% had reported irritability.
The corona virus emergency and the prohibitive measures that numerous nations are taking to prevent the infection could have negative effect on people’s mental wellbeing. An online survey conducted in India showed more than 80 % of the people were preoccupied with the thoughts of COVID-19 and 72 % reported the need to use gloves, and sanitizers. In this study, sleep difficulties, paranoia about acquiring COVID-19 infection and distress related social media were reported in 12.5 %, 37.8 %, and 36.4 % participants respectively. The perceived mental healthcare need was seen in more than 80 % of participants.
During lockdown, people are mostly spending their time on social media, refreshing online news portal every seconds, and with all the non evidenced, false or fabricated news about COVID-19 are worsening their mental status even more.
Sequence of activities like WHO declaring COVID-19 as “Pandemic”, the death toll and affected cases taking its peak, every news portal, every expertise, every individual talking about the virus, every social media feeds solely occupied by the factual or fabricated news about virus, people became fearful, and with this fear arises the unveiling rumors and misinformation. Staying at home, nowhere to go, because of the lockdown announced by government and with the fabricated news people are hovered with depressive feelings and panic attacks.
This pandemic is terrifying itself but it is also exposed to challenges the social media has imposed. The rumors and different conspiracy theories related to any issues due to social media and fabricated news from unregistered online news portal has caused indictment and xenophobia.
Different periods of evidence has shown that across a wide array of psychological events, people tend to focus more on the negative as they try to make sense of the world. We pay more attention to negative events than positive ones. So this universal habit has also touched the life of media , the media’s addiction in boosting the negative news is worsened by the fraction of second reach of individual posts, fabricated news, misleading preview and the flourishing of such news allover social media by likes and shares.
Not only COVID-19 is spreading faster, the flow of rumors and misinformation is also advancing in similar rate. Some misinformation includes misconstrued understandings of the disease, wishful thinking about false remedies and fanciful implications drawn on how the spread of the virus will occur. Due to this WHO has declared COVID 19 as infodemic. Infodemic means excessive information about certain issues such that the solution of those issues is made more difficult. Hence, currently we are not only fighting with pandemic but also with infodemic. So, what are more challenging to our mental health are pandemic, infodemic and lockdown.
The terror of the pandemic, fear and panic is not a new thing but what made it more threatening is that now we have access to web platforms, social medias where we see various fabricated news about virus which make us more anxious. COVID-19 is unknown, uncertain and uncontrolled. We are in lockdown, staying at home with no work done. No work means no money, especially it is harassing situation for daily wages workers. It comes with various threats, like physiological needs but most importantly, staying alive. Due to this threat, fabricated news, which may seem to restore these needs, tends to flow quickly. For example, rumors that vaccination for COVID 19 will be available soon. Lockdown, social distancing and fear of virus also make us believe these fabricated news because we are constantly scrolling social medias, online news portal.
Some fabricated news about the virus were ;the new corona virus was deliberately created or released by people, ordering or buying products shipped from overseas will make a person sick, you cannot recover from the corona virus disease ,catching the new corona virus means you will have it for life, being able to hold your breath for 10 seconds or more without coughing or feeling discomfort means you are free from the corona virus disease or any other lung disease, taking a hot bath prevents the new corona virus disease, exposing body to the sun or to temperatures higher than 25C prevent the corona virus disease the virus cannot be transmitted in areas with hot and humid climates, cold weather and snow can kill the new corona virus. These are some myths that circulated all over the social medias which WHO has addressed in their website with factual information. Like corona virus cannot be diagnosed with breathing exercises, a laboratory test is needed for the diagnosis, the virus can be alive in both hot and cold weather, exposing in sunlight , taking hot showers won’t kill the virus. The facts about coronovirus are well explained in UNICEF, WHO, CDC websites.
Nepal is not an exceptional, the fabricated news spread in a split of second regarding the virus, the screenshot of Whatsapp message saying 4-5 cases of COVID-19 admitted at Dulikhel hospital when Nepal had only one case reported . This screenshot went viral in every social media group. Similarly an audio clip suddenly went viral where person is heard saying six people tested positive for Covid-19 at Norvic Hospital in Thapathali,. Norvic hospital within hours put up a public notice, clarifying that the audio was fake. Issuing a statement, Norvic Hospital also called for action against those who spread the fake information. The police immediately took action and arrested the person. Another fabricated news was that army in helicopters spraying the disinfectants over the settlements at night. This misinformation and rumors on unregistered online news portal and social media has caused fear and anxiety among the people. Therefore, it is necessary to understand that not all information might be reliable as news agencies and groups can spread false information for self-advantage. Individuals are suggested to follow only that information from reliable sources and discard myths.
This pandemic fear has caused a great impact in our lives, where knowing the facts about it can save our physical as well as mental health whereas once the fabricated news gets viral it is very difficult to control. So this problem of fake news could be addressed by many ways, like providing factual information by expertise and addressing the fake news. Government plays a key role here, in providing detailed, clear, and transparent official information that crowds out fake news. Other ways may be we should practice wariness, we should fact check everything we see in social medias and news portal. We can use reputable fact checking sites such as AFP, Snopes. We should only trust the information from reliable source like WHO, CDC, COVID 19 Nepal.
During this lockdown period, physical health is equally important as mental health. WHO has clearly stated to minimize watching, reading or listening to news about COVID-19 that causes to feel anxious or distressed. The sudden and near-constant stream of news reports about an outbreak can cause anyone to feel worried. Facts can help to minimize fears. So only scroll and share the factual information. Further being optimistic during this period will be great help in improving one’s mental health; like relabeling the statement as stucking at home to finally having time for ownself and family. We should practice social distancing not emotional distancing. Engaging in activities like music, meditation, playing indoor games, watching movies together with families can enhance our good mental health. So, at this stage of time, WHO director general at Munich security conference has rightly said “This is a time for facts, not fear. This is a time for rationality, not rumors. This is time of solidarity, not stigma”.