The year 2020 will be remembered throughout the world as one of the worst years of history. The onset of the Coronavirus has wreaked havoc around the world. The year started with the pandemic which continued unabated throughout the year. The contagion has spread increasingly and caused damage in multi-dimensional ways. No doubt that it has left a devastating impact on the political, economic, and social structures of society. Loss of jobs, food shortage, mounting inequality, surging destitution, disruption of global supply chains, surging casualties, and introduction of blame game were some of the effects of this disastrous pandemic. In the discourse and scholarly research that followed the covid, these outcomes were appraised in depth. Besides this, the covid has negatively impacted human health. Fortunately, those who have mostly recovered from this disease also saw some parts of their body being damaged. It can damage the respiratory system depending on the level of immunity of the person. The manifestation of this can be seen in difficulty breathing and regular cough. Yet, these are the impacts that have been discussed but in the broader perspective, the way in which Covid has created depression and anxiety among people was on a much larger scale. It was due to the fact that the impacts of coronavirus were so multifaceted and multidimensional that it created conditions that led to depression and other such psychological problems. In many ways, it was indirectly responsible for engendering the issues of depression and anxiety. The essay will provide arguments on how coronavirus was responsible for causing depression in many ways.
All over the world one of the worst effects of the pandemic was on the economy. Considering that the economy has played a prominent role in the life of human beings, it can be argued that any slow down in the economy was bound to a mental health crisis. No aspect of life was left untouched by this savage pandemic. Yet, the most detrimental effects it created were for the economic sector. The onslaught of the pandemic has severely affected the supply-demand chain, closure of industries, slashing of wages, and many other aspects of the economy. Related to the United States, the effect on its economy was severe. As the center of the global economic system, the impacts of the coronavirus on the economy of America were exacerbated. It is apt to say that the scale of the economic crisis is unprecedented. The economy of America contracted to 32.9 percent annually between April and June. it was the historical decline of the gross domestic product. So it was in different ways that economic contraction led to mental health problems and depression.
Firstly, the pandemic has consequences for engendering unemployment. As unemployment crept in, the effects on mental health were visible and it was seen that unemployed people were beginning to have more health problems, especially mental health. Due to the onslaught of the covid 19, the supply-demand change was disrupted around the globe. As the lockdown was imposed and international flights were banned, this saw a steep fall in the demands of America. With the imposition of lockdowns, decline in consumer spending, and fall in exports, the industries in America were the axiomatic casualty. The output in the manufacturing, utility, and mining sector plummeted. Industrial production in the US plummeted in March 2020. Since then, the production has failed to achieve the pre-pandemic levels. In such cases, the industries that cannot employ the strategy of remote workers saw a further decline in their production. According to the Federal Reserve Bank, the manufacturing sector of the Us employs thirteen million workers. So, the direct outcome of the fall in industrial production was the result of unemployment. Yet, as the business around the country also weakened, this was another reason for the large-scale unemployment in the country. Before the onslaught of the pandemic, the rate of unemployment in the country was at a fifty-year low. Nevertheless, the situation changed after the pandemic. The unemployment rate surged to 14.7 percent which was the highest since world war two. The fall in unemployment has spillover effects on the American economy. It decreases consumption, lowered household age, and spending. Besides this, due to non-availability of the financial resource, this creates an added burden on the already strained economy. Due to high unemployment, more workers will be available which means that wages will decline.
As unemployment surged, people and adults tend to become conscious about their earning and incomes. The economic problems engendered by the conflict made their daily life unstable. In the worst cases, the access to services was diminished. As the majority of the people belong from lower to middle-income groups, it has further exacerbated the problem. For those members of the family who have fragile jobs, the contagion has impacted them badly and shrank the resources to sustain the family. The closure due to pandemics has limited the options. The report has suggested that adults or persons who have lost their job showed 53 percent more signs of depression than adults and persons who have not lost their jobs. In this way, it can be argued that the pandemic was responsible for causing depression and mental health problems due to economic depression caused by the coronavirus.
Another important factor that contributes to depression among children, youth, and parents, especially mothers. As the schools were closed and regular learning was disrupted, it caused huge problems for the students and their children. The main institution for socialization was church and school where the young generation can socialize. As these institutions were closed due to lockdown, this affected their socialization development, for which school is a key institution. The schooling of children is also affected due to the inefficient availability of the internet. Due to the closure of schools and churches, cognitive and rational development is affected. These institutions were vital for intellectual development. As socialization is necessary to such developments, it will seriously obstruct the rational development of the mind. Students could not participate in constructive and productive activities that are indispensable to encourage critical thinking and foster a problem-solving approach. In this way, it can be said that children's mental health growth was encumbered and in the future, this can lead to depression.
Many families confront problems regarding the future of children and their education. Both children will face hiccups in getting an education. Their learning prospects will be affected which will affect their future in the long term. Moreover, from the psychosocial development of Erikson, the socio-economic issues and learning losses will exact a considerable toll on mental health. The probability of restlessness, anxiety and depression has surged in these hard circumstances. As a result, children and adults were not able to concentrate on their studies. Due to the extension of the pandemic, the families have looked for debt to resolve their issues of expenditure. This may force the family to abandon the education of their children and look for them to get the job to meet expenses and pay off the debt. In this way, the contagion presents a whole sum of problems that have seriously affected the family’s health. Again, the studies related to this dimension of depression caused due to coronavirus proved this fact. It has been noted that women with parents were 49 percent more likely to have depression and anxiety than women having no children.
The affront of coronavirus has left people, especially from lower sections of the society in tatters. Another problem that has a more systematic and structural dimension is the lack of facilities in the village or rural areas. In the face of a crisis, the availability of social welfare programs gains extreme importance. However, the lack of availability of facilities such as alternative employment opportunities, inefficient internet networks, weak healthcare amenities, and many others has created considerable problems for families. People who are already suffering from different diseases may not be able to get the required health access. They saw most of the health staff engaged in handling corona patients. As income is lost, patients may also not be able to buy medicines that are necessary to sustain their health. This problem can be tackled from a systematic and structural theory that opined that certain inherent and systematic factors contribute to social problems. In the contemporary case, the lack of basic amenities is the structural factor that has contributed to the worsening of socio-economic woes. The problem can also be elaborated by the Basic needs approach which states that social problems arise due to the lack of basic facilities such as health, education, and income. In light of these facts, anxiety and depression will creep in. People who are already suffering from diseases will be extremely frustrated as they have not received the required medical care. Besides this, the non-availability of the basic facilities will further create problems for the population leading to a surge in depression and tension.
The onset of the coronavirus has badly impacted the lungs and caused other health problems. The result was that there was increased concern among people and patients leading to mental health and psychological issues. Moreover, research has shown that children who were afflicted with covid 19 have shown signs of Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome. Yet the causes of this virus are not ascertained but it can be found among children affected with coronavirus. The presence of this virus can seriously hurt the lungs, heart, body skin, eyes, and mental health. It can then lead to diseases such as high fever, breathing problems, and excessive tiredness. In severe cases, they can cause difficulty in breathing, disruptions in sleep time, and extreme abdominal pain. Sepsis is another conceivable inconvenience of a serious instance of COVID-19.sepsis occurs when the disease spreads all along with the circulation system, leading to infection of tissue harm wherever it spreads. In this disease, the cooperation between the organs becomes negligible. As a result, the whole organ system of the body halts which includes even the heart and lungs system. The disease has deleterious effects on the lungs and the other organs of the body. This can also result in badly damaging the lung.
In addition to the severity of the covid, the present health situation of the patient also plays a vital role in determining the effects on the physical and mental health of the body. In case, the patient is already suffering from some disease such as asthma or heart problems, then the resultant impacts on coronavirus will be stringent. Related to aged people, the situation can be extremely dangerous as they have impaired immune systems due to old age. The vulnerability of age is due to old health and weak immunity. Yet, it has been noted that people suffering from these diseases have found it extremely difficult to cope with the tension that usually accompanies such diseases. Due to covid, the circumstances were already tense, any mild symptoms of tension put people into exaggerated depression and tension. The fear was so overwhelming that everyone felt increased anxiety. As a result, psychological issues take a severe toll on mental health.
During coronavirus, the majority of the people who suffered from different types of depression and anxiety were women. Different studies have shown that women were the primary victims of the corona in one form or another. A survey carried out by total brain showed that a whopping 32 percent showed signs of depression as compared to 36 percent of men. So, why was the case of depression high for women? There were many reasons for that. First, it was the loss of jobs and overall peculiar circumstances that pushed women into depression. Yet, there was more than that. Women faced increasingly hostile circumstances during the coronavirus. As the lockdowns were imposed, it saw that more women were engaged in the household work. Their household burden was doubled and it was seen that they had to manage many tasks at a time. As a result, more women became depressed. More so, there was a surge in cases of domestic violence and abuse against women. During the lockdown, as more time was spent together and due to boredom and frustration, there was violence and women were the direct victims. This produced a strain in a relationship and gravely affected their marriage life. Due to this, it was seen that there was increased depression among women. In this way, the onset of the coronavirus increased depression.
In spite of this, there has been a counterargument that tends to argue that coronavirus has nothing to do with depression and it has increased depression. It is rooted in the fact that before the depression, there was already an increased depression and it has nothing to do with the introduction of the corona. For instance, they argued that in 2017 one in five adults reported some sort of symptom of anxiety and depression. No doubt that their depression was there before coronavirus, yet, the onslaught of the virus has increased the chances of depression in many ways. It has engendered different circumstances that have led to depression. It has led to unemployment, loss of studies, disruption of routine and normal life, difficulty in accessing basic amenities, economic problems, health problems. Do these factors have no effect on mental and psychological health? Different studies have pointed to this which clearly defies the irrational logic of the counterargument.
The onset of the coronavirus has left deleterious impacts. It has impacted people across the world. Besides socio-economic impacts, the contagion has engendered multifarious health problems for the people and other multiple problems. All these problems then were key to increased the state of depression and anxiety among people. It can be argued that coronavirus was key to increasing depression and anxiety.
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- Long-Term Effects of COVID-19. (2020, November).
- Fava, Maurizio. “Depression on the Rise During COVID-19: Resources for Patients and Their Families.” June 2020
- “The Impact of COVID-19 on Mental Health.”
- Reichert, Dr. Elizabeth. “COVID-19: Depression, Anxiety, Risk for Suicide.”