Three Pandemics and A Virus: How Does COVID-19 Affect Mental Health?

The outbreak of COVID-19 has provoked not just one pandemic, but three: a viral pandemic, an emotional distress pandemic, and a disinformation pandemic.

Article By Gádor Rubias González-Rothvoss

When the first cases of COVID-19 appeared here, in Spain, we could not possibly imagine the extent to which this virus would alter our lives. Listening to our President’s first speech addressing the issue, from March 15th, makes it obvious that we were not ready for the horror that would ensue. Back then, we still joked about “this silly new coronavirus”, and thought that the only pandemic we were facing was that of unnecessary alarmism.

But we were soon proven wrong. Both the number of contagions and the number of deaths rocketed on a daily basis. The ICUs here, in Madrid, simply did not have enough Bilevel Positive Airway Pressure (BiPAP) machines—even when less-affected provinces sent us all the equipment they could. The horror did not stop there. Doctors were forced to let people with lower chances of recovering die because they needed the beds for the daily hundreds of new arrivals. Volunteers turned the Ice Palace Skating Rink into a morgue because there were so many bodies, the funerary services could not provide cremation to all. Streets became deserted. Cities became ghost towns. Communication as we knew it was unheard of.

As the days went by, as the virus relentlessly struck us; dark feelings settled inside of us. Loneliness, despair, uncertainty, hopelessness... And, above all, fear. We woke in fear, ate in fear, watched the news in fear, and went to sleep in fear. With every passing minute, we choked on the sensation—the certainty—that nothing was alright, that there was no end in sight to all the loss and the tragedy. This belief soon became our emotional “New Normal”, and it will take us a long time to leave it behind.

Scientific research is already backing up this belief. Fiorillo and Gorwood (2020) explain that the heavy blows delivered to our psychological and emotional well-being, by the virus, are not to be ignored. In fact, some experts are already talking about a “second pandemic”: a pandemic of fear, anxiety, and depression (Yao, Chen, & Xu, 2020).

One that, despite its trigger being a new type of coronavirus, we have already faced a number of times. Some years ago, Korea experienced an outbreak of coronavirus infections that has been well researched. The information available has allowed Torales, O’Higgins, Castaldelli-Maia, and Ventriglio (2020) to show how medical isolation causes a significant increase in the patients’ stress levels when compared to their non-isolated counterparts.

But, under the threat of COVID-19, confirmed positives are not the only ones that have been isolated. All over the world, people have been forced to practice social distancing, as well as to stay at home, in an attempt to slow down the spread of the virus. These are measures that, although help to flatten the curve, will take a toll on our individual and collective mental health due to the behavioral changes they demand (Galea, Merchant, & Lurie, 2020).

Quarantine and Mental Health

It can seem tricky, at first. How is staying at home harmful for our mental health? To answer this question, one has to understand that humans are, by nature, afraid of what they do not know. Because of this fear, we instinctively seek information about our environment, with which we can be better prepared to face whatever challenges our surroundings present us with (Blanco, Horcajo, & Sánchez, 2017). If we bring COVID-19 up again in this context, its impact on mental health begins to make sense. This is an unpredictable virus, transmitted through the air, with a structure and a functioning that experts are still trying to decipher. Unpredictability leads to uncertainty, which is something that, as we have already mentioned, we humans do not like much (Rajkumar, 2020). So we try to make it predictable by trying to gain certainty. And our primary source of certainty, in our Digital Era, is the ability to stay up to date on how the situation evolves.

News is published and shared on the Internet every minute, as well as broadcasted on TV and shared on every social media platform. Instagram posts, YouTube videos, tweets… There are too many sources, publishing too much content in too little time. Double-checking your facts becomes impossible—hence the third pandemic COVID-19 has brought about. This overload of information has been labeled “infodemic”, as it is an optimum breeding ground for fake news and mistaken data (Fiorillo et al., 2020). One of its main “symptoms” is the rising new cases of severe mental health conditions, such as anxiety disorders and depression, caused by the exposure to the COVID-19 mass trauma (Fiorillo et al., 2020; Neria & Sullivan, 2020). How? Via emotional contagion from exposure to social media, which makes us prone to developing PTSD because of the high stress caused by the “infodemic” (Kramer, Guillory, & Hancock, 2020).

Dealing with this kind of isolation is not as easy as turning off the TV and muting your Twitter and Instagram notifications. As Pfefferbaum and North (2020) have pointed out, there are other serious psychosocial consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic that are damaging our psychological well being. Because of the large financial losses, the bankruptcy rates that result in a massive loss of jobs, the ever-changing words from the authorities, the social deprivation that comes with mass home-confinement… These are all powerful triggers for symptoms of depression, anxiety, self-harm, or even suicidal ideation.

And they are even more so for people with pre-existing mental health conditions, whose chances of suffering a relapse or new episodes are dramatically increased (Druss, 2020; Kavoor, 2020). A psychotic episode may be triggered, in the case of people who suffer from schizophrenia. People who suffer from anorexia nervosa may take up even more restrictive eating habits, as well as start over-exercising to make up for their sedentarism. The emotional rollercoaster that comes naturally with Borderline Personality Disorder, exacerbated by the lockdown and the social distancing, might make the person either develop or relapse to severe mental illnesses.

We are on our way to flattening the first curve of this pandemic. But our fight against COVID-19 cannot stop there. The great impact of this virus on our mental health is not to be underestimated, and sooner than later, the time will come to face the second and third pandemics.

While healing will not be easy, it will be possible—as long as we stand together.

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