The 2003 SARS coronavirus outbreak was a relatively minor event when compared to the COVID-19 epidemic. Yet despite this, there was a 30% increase in suicides of people aged over 65 living in Hong Kong. We should prepare ourselves, not ignore the possibility of mental health issues arising from COVID-19 too. Maddy Savage, writing for BBC believes life won’t be normal for the unfortunate few after this epidemic either.
Social Anxiety and Germaphobia in a Neo COVID-19 World
Take Susan Kemp for example. She had an active life before contracting the virus. But she’s only left her Stockholm apartment five times since then. She has become obsessed with cleaning things. ‘I cry one of those cries where your body and lungs feel sore afterwards,’ she confided to Maddy Savage.
It seems this is unlikely to be a rare occurrence. Steven Taylor, professor in psychiatry at the University of British Columbia has a downbeat take on the future. ‘For an unfortunate minority of people, perhaps 10 to 15%, life will not return to normal,’ he believes. That’s because a significant minority … will be affected by long-term anxiety according to Australia’s Black Dog Institute.
Life Won’t Be Normal For the Unfortunate Few This Time Either
Joshua C Morganstein is assistant director at the Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress in Maryland. He told Maddy Savage adverse mental health effects of disasters ‘last much longer than physical health effects’.
Therefore life won’t be normal for the unfortunate few just because of COVID-19. It’s because of post-traumatic stress disorder too. Take the aftershock of the Chernobyl nuclear accident in Ukraine. A 25-year retrospective view found the mental effects were ‘the most significant consequence of the disaster’.
Steven Taylor expects people with a predisposition with cleanliness may develop the pathological fear of contamination called germophobia. Unless they receive appropriate mental health treatment.’ This may display as over-anxiety because of the threat of a variant strain.
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