Among the many other things it is, the coronavirus is a perfect storm of anxiety creation. On top of fears about how far the crisis will go, there is isolation, threats to employment, loss of personal connections and physical contact.
“We are seeing an increasing number of calls, web chats and emails about COVID-19,” Beyond Blue chief executive Georgie Harman told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
“There’s been a four-fold increase in contacts directly related to the virus since early March … it’s a grave concern because it’s reflective of the significant and quite valid anxiety that the community is feeling right now.”
Lifeline has also seen a spike in calls.
“Just in the last week, the number of callers who contacted Lifeline and wanted to talk about concerns surrounding COVID-19 has increased from 23% to 39%. We expect this to continue to rise as Australians lose opportunities to connect with each other due to the effects of COVID-19.” Lifeline Australia chairman John Brogden said at the end of March.
Lifeline estimates it is receiving around 3000 calls a day, or a call every 30 seconds.
And there may be impacts beyond the immediate. The pandemic is guaranteed to have a severe impact on the economy over a number of years. This is equally worrying.
Research in the British Journal of Psychiatry in 2014 showed that suicide rates around the world “rose significantly” in the years following the global financial crisis.
One of the country’s chief mental health experts, Patrick McGorry, described Australia’s mental health system as “not fit for purpose” in light of the crisis.
However many mental health peak bodies have since welcomed the Australian Government’s injection of $64 million into suicide prevention and mental health initiatives.
For anyone seeking help, Lifeline is on 13 11 14 and Beyond Blue is 1300 22 4636.
These effects are not due to the virus, they are due to the prevailing perception of the virus and its risk, and the large scale changes such as social distancing, isolation etc.
Unless a person has been exposed to the virus or influenced directly by the virus or infected someone they know, it is hard to see how the virus causes these impacts.
The degree of societies reaction to the virus (disconnected from any arguments about whether it is entirely appropriate or not appropriate), itself would surely effect perceptions and emotional reactions. Perhaps a bit like a dramatic musical score during a movie.
“There’s been a four-fold increase in contacts directly related to the virus since early March … it’s a grave concern” grave concern? Should we be extremely anxious about the degree of peoples anxiety to this issue?
Its no wonder some people are susceptible to anxiety, when the entire dialogue in our society towards risk is generally alarmist in nature.
““Just in the last week, the number of callers who contacted Lifeline and wanted to talk about concerns surrounding COVID-19 has increased from 23% to 39%”- that is dramatic, these figures are causing my pulse to soar. Not really.
People are talking more about a heavily promoted issue. The capacity of emotionally and socially themed issues to bias human perception of issues is well established in social psychology. It is well known this can result in misleading or incorrect interpretations / assumptions.
You can not really even question the general alarmist messages being constantly sprouted forth such as “thousands dead” etc. Usually a hypothesis is considered more credible if it is exposed to and survives comprehensive alternate ideas and scrutiny. The problem is many people in modern society to not seem to have a sense of “realistic proportion” in regards to the significance of issues.
Why is 40 deaths so horrific (roughly the current toll as claimed), when on average 13000 Australians die each month from the other causes of death. That is over 300x the number dying on a regular basis. A significantly larger amount probably die early from health complications due to obesity, sedentary life style etc. Why have we not shut down all fast food outlets across the nation?
This virus is certainly not the worst case virus scenarion It has been well known that there is such a risk, and it could be a virus that is more contagious, with a significantly higher death rate, but delayed enough to spread effectively. Yet no sensible mechanisms seem to have been much in place to deal with such an issue, as though it was largely ignored, then likely a huge over reaction.
Because there is no hard data on the case fatality rate. More than a few credible experts have suggested it is quiet likely the actual incidence of the virus in the population is for example 10x what has been “confirmed”. But of course such information is promoted in an alarmist perspective, it seems people must generally conform with this. Some experts have done mathematical models, that have predicted with significant accuracy primary figure in the current situation from various weeks ago. The idea was suggested of a large amount of diagnosed and recovered people in the population. This does not mean we are all about to drop dead, it likely means that we are only testing the most likely (in general) to get seriously ill, or too narrow a scope in the people we are testing. Sort of like going to a palliative care unit and conducting health surveys to measure the nations health.
The main mathematical model i referenced above, predicted a 0.15% case fatality rate. In 2017 in Australia the amount of deaths caused by the flu may have been considered a lot higher but we count pneumonia irrespective of being cause largely the influenza. Of course this virus is far more statistically dangerous, we count second pneumonia complications as a virus death.
29% of tests return false results or miss the virus. More reliable tests take too long. Testing viruses is very complicated, a challenge to our most advance science, its likely many viruses- including those with significant effects- travel through our human populations that we are not able to identify, have not identified at all. It is usually especially hard identifying new viruses, not closely related to current ones.
People may become depressed (or anxious) that our society makes too many irrational, non-evidence based decisions and is likely to mishandle truly serious events of a significantly larger magnitude in potential impact as they present themselves potentially in the future.
Thank god the “Ice Epidemic” users have not combined re infection with the Coronavirus pandemic to cause an exponential risk multiplication.
People who have not had experience with real life risks and scenarios to a significant degree don’t seem to develop anxiety in relation to such experiences, but rely not on experience but their imagination to consider the risk.
Please won’t the media tell me its safe?