https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/meeting-mental-health-challenge-covid-19-pandemicMeeting the Mental Health Challenge of the COVID-19 Pandemic
April 24, 2020
Jeffrey A. Lieberman, MD , Mark Olfson, MD, MPH
The public is gripped by fear of COVID-19 and by worry over whether the health system will be able to treat them or their loved ones should they become ill. Consequently, clinical and public health efforts have focused on acute medical care needs of those who are severely affected, while containing the virus’s spread in the population.
The public is gripped by fear of the novel coronavirus of 2019 (COVID-19) and by worry over whether the health system will be able to treat them or their loved ones should they become ill. Consequently, clinical and public health efforts have focused on acute medical care needs of those who are severely affected, while containing the virus’s spread in the population. Urgent priorities have included expanding hospitals’ capacities to care for sick patients and equipping health care providers to meet the unprecedented medical demands while keeping them safe. Meanwhile, concerted efforts are underway to validate diagnostic tests and bring them to scale while developing effective acute and preventive treatments, including vaccines.
Understandably, much less attention has been paid to the mental health consequences of the pandemic. Yet while the urgent emphasis is and should be on containing the virus and its physical threat, when the pandemic has subsided and we begin to resume normal life, it is the psychological sequelae that will emerge and persist for months and years to come.
