Dave Kendall

Covid-19 has wrought havoc across the world, but even for those spared the worst physical and economic brunt, riding the pandemic has been an emotional rollercoaster: fear of death and uncertainty through anger and bravado to empathy and hope.

Combination image from https://th.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%B9%84%E0%B8%A7%E0%B8%A3%E0%B8%B1%E0%B8%AA%E0%B9%82%E0%B8%84%E0%B9%82%E0%B8%A3%E0%B8%99%E0%B8%B2 and https://pixabay.com/photos/california-adventure-roller-coaster-886581/

Speaking to Dr Sanjay Gupta on April 14, CNN anchor Chris Cuomo, who is suffering from a relatively mild case of Covid-19, said “the virus gets in your brain”. He was talking about the physiological impact of the novel coronavirus on the emotions — but whether or not we’ve contracted it, the virus is already “in our brains”. 

A paper published in the The Lancet Psychiatry on April 15 describes a severe impact on mental health, with experts predicting rises in anxiety, depression, suicide, alcoholism and substance abuse.

The crisis has had a profound effect on our collective psyche and set us on a rollercoaster of feelings and thoughts. Here are the some of the emotional twists, turns and freefalls I’ve observed and experienced.

Fear of uncertainty

US President Trump’s current attack on the World Health Organisation and China’s lack of transparency is at least partially motivated by a desire to deflect blame from his own early complacency and dissembling. But it emphasises how little any of us knew, and still know, about the course the virus would take. In a world overwhelmed with data, it is shocking how little we have regarding SARS-CoV-2. We still don’t know how far and how fast it spreading, and how lethal it really is, because there has been no blanket testing. On one hand, Sophon Iamsirithavorn, chief of Thailand’s Communicable Disease Division, in March estimated that anywhere between 400,000 and 37.4 million Thais would be infected with the virus – in the worst case scenario, more than half the population. Using the World Health Organization’s projected fatality rate of 3.4%, 1.27 million Thais could die. On the other hand, Stanford professor John P.A. Ioannidis believed the actual death rate is likely to be closer to 0.3%. He cited a study of the Diamond Princess cruise ship — one of the only places where 100% of people were tested, but with a large proportion of elderly guests — and applied the statistics to the age structure of the general US population. That produced an estimated death rate of only 0.125%.

From uncertainty comes confusion. As a journalist, is my responsibility to tell the truth or perform a public service? When I report the daily number of infections and deaths for Bangkok Post and see a declining trend, I don’t know whether to highlight this (truth) or emphasise that infections are still rising and limited testing means we have no idea how many of them there really are (responsibility). As a journalist, I seek to present the facts, the objective truth, but the way these facts are presented, and the context provided, completely changes their impact on the reptilian brain that arguably drives human behaviour far more than the cerebral cortex.

Before he was forced to change course, partly due to pressure from other European leaders, Boris Johnson seemed to favour a managed pursuit of herd immunity, isolating those at risk of serious illness and death — the elderly and those with underlying health conditions – while letting the virus spread among those less at risk, such as children. Can we be sure that wasn’t the better option? We may not know for years, and it will depend on whether the virus comes back in waves before we’ve developed a vaccine.  

Other fears

We humans go to great lengths to pretend the one inevitable thing in our lives, our death, is not going to happen. A lot of our culture – not to mention our religions – is based on the idea that we’re all sailing forward to ever-greater happiness and achievement. When death strikes – the actual death of a loved one, or the possibility or certainty of our own imminent death — it is usually a very individual, isolated experience, because others are not willing or able to confront it. With Covid-19, the fear of death has become more real and more shared. Many of my American Facebook friends have reported deaths of parents, colleagues, friends – and I dread news of someone I know personally.

There is the also fear of the future. Many jobs have been lost, particularly in service industries, and some of them will not come back. If the novel coronavirus becomes endemic, what will become of tourism, and the roughly 20% of Thailand’s gross domestic product that depends on it?

My own profession, journalism, was already in sharp decline and is facing further disruption. Journalism depends on freedom of expression, and the limitations enacted by governments in Asia do not bode well for the future – authoritarians never met a crisis they didn’t like, or at least didn’t seek to turn to their advantage. Just as 9/11 was used as a justification for unprecedented mass surveillance, so the coronavirus emergency is introducing mass geo-tracking as “the new normal” – led, of course, by China, which is adding locational data to its suite of social credit monitoring tools. Google – banned from China, but a rival in data collection and aggregation –  is playing ball; how long will its tracking data remain “anonymous”?

Loneliness and claustrophobia

Lockdowns and social distancing have radically changed the ways humans interact. On one hand, couples have spent far more time with one another – and hardly anyone else – than ever before. One Japanese short-term apartment rental company is offering temporary accommodation to stave off “coronavirus divorce.”

Millions of others are alone. Loneliness is a powerful emotion with deep psychological roots; our need for social interaction is embedded in our DNA, partly because our primitive ancestors did not survive if they were ejected from their social group.

Anger

The natural human response to fear is anger. If we can blame something or someone, it makes us feel less helpless – and there is no shortage of targets for our palliative rage.

The Chinese government for suppressing early information about the virus – and for many millions prone to simplistic racial prejudice, the entire Chinese nation. Donald Trump for his complacency and lack of preparation. Government officials round the world for slow responses. Politicians and hoarders for using the crisis to pursue their own self-interest. Wildlife traders for enabling the first animal-human transmission that probably started the pandemic. Real estate developers and government economists for encouraging encroachment on natural habitats and co-mingling of domestic and wild species. Globalists for making the world so inter-connected. There’s plenty of people to blame and vent our frustrations upon.

Bravado

Another natural reaction to fear is bravado. You could see it in the pre-curfew pick-up truck drinkers before the booze ban and the groups of Westerners walking past a shuttered Nana Plaza, laughing loudly. I have noticed it in myself in moments of madness: questioning whether I would be better off getting the virus and “getting it over with”; – I am not young but relatively healthy, and I will have no contact with the elderly for the foreseeable future. I will be helping build herd immunity. The world is overreacting. Look on the bright side: the number of regular flu victims has dropped through better hygiene habits and social distancing.

Maybe more lives have been saved by the pandemic than lost: Forbes estimated the lockdown saved 77,000 lives in China by reducing pollution. There are reasons to be cheerful if you’re desperate enough.

Guilt

Guilt is an emotion that some are more prone to than others. I am vaguely aware of the guilt feeling of the survivor (thus far); many have contracted the disease, many have died. I am also aware of how fortunate I am compared with others. I still have a job, for now. I have access to water, food and medical treatment. I am at home in a comfortable environment. 

As usual in any crisis, the poor suffer the most. Many who have lost their jobs can’t pay their rent, their mortgages and other bills. In parts of South Asia and Africa in particular, a lockdown means limited or no access to basic necessities, including food and water. In many countries, the death toll from virus control measures could be worse than from the virus itself.

Empathy

I have never lived through a war, but I imagine the sense of shared suffering and a common enemy must be similar to this. The sense of “we’re all this together”, as a common email signature goes, is quite uplifting. The competitive nature of capitalist society with its barrage of advertising images designed to maintain us in a consumer frenzy, and the cultural pressure to put on the happy face and pretend we’re doing well – the constant the “I’m so cool, I’m doing great’ Facebook posts – has seemed to wane. It’s become acceptable to say that we’re sad and we’re frightened. There is a palpable sense of unity among humans that is quite refreshing.

Hope

We all love happy endings – no sniggering, please – and since we don’t know if we’re going to get one in real life, I’m putting one in this article. While the pandemic has isolated us from one another physically, it has brought us together emotionally – and who knows, maybe even spiritually. It is also giving us a chance to question some of the choices we’ve made as a species, particularly regarding our attitude to our environment and other living creatures. Many believe that our pursuit of greater wealth, greater weaponry and greater dominion over the earth has put us on a path of self-destruction, with climate change a compelling example. In The Matrix, Agent Smith says humans are a disease, a cancer of the planet…a virus. As we’ve learned, our scientific know-how is breath-taking on one hand, and deplorably limited on the other. Can we use it to re-engineer our DNA?