COVID-19 may not be the only dangerous disease sweeping the globe — mental illness could also reach alarming levels during the coronavirus lockdown if not kept in check, a World Health Organization chief warned Friday.
“We are definitely worried,” Dr. Hans Kluge, the agency’s regional director for Europe, said on the Times’ daily podcast. “We want to avoid a pandemic of mental disorders in addition to a pandemic of COVID-19.”
His concerns stem from what he’s personally experienced so far during the quarantine.
“I see it around me. I see it in my own household. This is putting a burden on individual people, but then also collectively; the elderly people who cannot see their grandchildren,” he told journalist Kat Lay on the “Stories of Our Times” podcast. “So my message is: Stay connected. We can not overstate the importance. Stay connected.”
He added: “The sense of belonging is very, very important. This is something we have to work on together.”
At the top of Kluge’s list? Call your elderly loved ones ASAP.
“My message to the young: If you can’t see your grandparents, call them every single day or twice a day,” he said.
Routine is also key to maintaining good mental health during isolation.
“Have a daily routine, stay healthy, do daily exercise,” he added. “I would like to give the wonderful example of Denmark, which on national television at nine o’clock every morning, is singing songs with the whole nation.”
Experts are particularly worried about the well-being of medical professionals in New York City who are on the front lines of the pandemic.
“We have very justifiable concerns right now about the mental health of this population,” Yulia Chentsova Dutton, a cultural psychology professor at Georgetown University, told The Washington Times.
As of March 26, at least 65 nurses at New York hospitals have tested positive for the coronavirus and several health-care workers have died.
Some have taken to social media to vent their anguish.
“I broke down and cried today. I cried of exhaustion, of defeat,” Iowa nurse Sydni Lane wrote in a widely shared Instagram post last week. “I have to go into every patient’s room and in the back of my mind I think ‘this could be the patient that gets me sick… that kills me.’
Experts also believe that social-distancing habits formed during quarantine could have long-lasting effects on society.
“It’s hard to go back to more relaxed norms,” said Dutton, citing how Russians have continued to observe the habit of immediately changing clothes after coming home since World War II. “You will probably see something similar happening in the United States.”
On a brighter note, more time spent working from home and shared with family during shelter in place could result in a greater emphasis on personal time moving forward.
“We could be more mindful of how busy we want our life to get in the future,” said Andrea Chronis-Tuscano, a psychology professor at the University of Maryland.
