COVID-19’s Psychological Impacts

Coronavirus (COVID-19) is a highly infectious virus that spread at a devastating speed that started in late 2019.

Due to the virus’s widespread nature, countries had to take very strict rules to halt the virus until the proper

medical requirements to stop the virus are ready. Unfortunately, one of the strict rules was quarantine, which

also included having both work and education online. While a minority of people enjoyed the quarantine, the

majority had many issues with it, proven by the remarkable increase in mental health issues and financial

struggles. To begin with, people were not well prepared for the sudden ‘Stay at home!’ order and the transition

of work and education to online platforms. Sitting at home for months without any kind of social interaction had

a significant negative impact on many people’s mental health. For instance, as shown in the bar graph in Figure

1 by National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), 41.1% of adults have reported showing symptoms of anxiety or

depression disorders in January 2021 compared to 11.0% in early-to-mid-2019, showing a significant change of

31.1 percent during those two years (Panchal et al., 2021). Moreover, Table 1 shows that the respondents’

percentages of depression, stress and anxiety in mild and moderate levels both increased, with moderate

depression going from 9.7% to 20.2% and moderate anxiety going from 7.6% to 15.3 %in the span of a week

(Pandey et al., 2020). Also, the fact that people lost their jobs or experienced financial insecurity due to some

jobs not being able to transition into an online platform, companies firing employees to cut costs, or lowering

work hours for lower wages have affected their mental health negatively. To illustrate, Figure 2, made by Kaiser

Family Foundation (KFF) Health Tracking Poll, compares the yearly salary of adults and their mental health

effects by talking about stress-inducing conversations about the coronavirus, the bar graph shows that 35% of

the people who earn less than 40K dollars had a major negative impact on them compared to only 17% of the

people who earn above 90K dollars (Panchal et al., 2020). In conclusion, while we successfully managed to end

the lockdowns and get back to our normal lives, COVID-19 took its toll not only physically but psychologically

on the people.
Tables & Figures.

Figure 1.

Nirmita Panchal , Rabah Kamal , Cynthia Cox and Rachel Garfield. National Health Interview Survey

(NHIS) Early Release Program and U.S. Census Bureau Household Pulse Survey average share of adults

reporting symptoms of anxiety or depression disorders .2021.

Figure 2.

Nirmita Panchal , Rabah Kamal , Cynthia Cox and Rachel Garfield. Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF)

Health Tracking Poll Percent of adults who say worry or stress related to the coronavirus mental health

impact.2020.
Table 1.

Deeksha Pandey, Suvrati Bansal , Shubham Goyal , Akanksha Garg , Nikita Sethi , Dan Isaac Pothiyill ,

Edavana Santhosh Sreelakshmi , Mehmood Gulab Sayyad and Rishi Sethi. The psychological impact of

mass quarantine on the population during pandemics—The COVID-19 Lock-Down (COLD) study .

2020.