 Hi all, I am Vijay, faculty of psychology from Shankara IS Academy. So today we are going to discuss about the psychological impacts of COVID-19. So we all know that this COVID-19 started in China in a seafood market and slowly it got turned into a epidemic in Wuhan region and because of the global connectedness it has turned into a pandemic where more than 150 countries have got affected. So now we have seen a lot of epidemics and pandemics for example like Ebola, the SARS-1, the version 1, MERS and NIPAA but actually what this coronavirus differs its ability to spread rapidly and effortlessly. That is the reason today we find that more than 200 countries have got affected and nearing around approximately they say that 2 crore population have got infected and some in like death has happened. In India alone we find that nearing around 40,000 death and more than 21 lakh has got affected and every day we find a rise of around 20,000 cases, infected cases. So that is how the power of the coronavirus which has the virulence factor which has a high spread rate. So coming to the government, yes almost 140 days back the government has taken some series of measures. We know that we started with a nationwide lockdown and the government took some measures like quarantine and the government has taken something like contact tracing and building the health infrastructure, providing the support for the poor people and migrants and so on. But actually what the government has missed is the mental health. So why I need to specifically talk about the mental health or psychological health is in China they did a survey during the SARS they found that in the survey population sample out of this sample or out of this population 53% of the respondent told that they had experienced some sort of psychological symptoms and nearing 16% of the population has got some depressive symptoms and around 28% of the population has got some anxiety symptoms. So it clearly shows that the pandemic or in some sort of epidemic has some problem on the mental health or the psychological health. So we need to focus on the mental health. Now the second thing is today many healthy individual has also started experiencing psychological symptoms. Now these healthy people individual they are not much aware of it that they are experiencing the psychological symptoms or sometime even they are very aware of it because of the guilt shame or because of the embarrassment they are unlikely to take medical help and most of the time they suffer in the silence. So that is a reason we have to focus more on the psychological health and mental health during this pandemic period because anyway at one point of time we are going to find some medicines or vaccine to control this virus coronavirus. And the thing is the medical crisis may end but the psychological crisis the mental health crisis may begin. So that is a reason our focus has to be more or our focus and even the government focus has to be more on the mental health. Now this entire pandemic this coronavirus ultimately induces stress on the people. So I will say that there are four sources of stress during this pandemic. The first thing is the nature of the virus. Now initially it was said that the WHO said this virus does not transmit from people to people but later they said that yes it can spread from people to people it is a contagious and later whether it transmits in the air whether it does not transmits in the air. So we have lot of confusion over this virus how this virus will behave even though today we have some reasonable information but yet we have to get the complete information about the virus. The second is the long period of economic instability. We know that all the community services has been closed down the business has been collapsed and all the education institution colleges, competitive exams everything has been halted. So that is a second source of thing and many people are in the confusion what about the future of economic future in India. The third thing is the extensive media coverage. Now the media coverage if you take a media the job of the media is to give preventive and precautionary but what happens you see some of the media content directly or indirectly create some apprehension and also create some sort of amplification among the people. So that is a third source of stress and the last one is the information about when this crisis is going to end. Now that is a loss of confusion so still now we are not very clear even the President of the United States said that it is a virus has to decide even in India also the same case we do not have information. Now this four sources is creating lot of stress among the people for the people who are in the business for the people who are working the job or the people who are preparing for competitive exams and schools colleges for everyone this is a source of stress. Now I am going to discuss briefly because of the brevity of the time what are all the psychological changes that happens in the various in the people of the various stakeholders like the general public for the medical professional for children etc and then what are all the psychological symptoms people will experience during this pandemic period and intervention how we need to intervene. So in this the first one is what are the behavioral changes or the psychological changes we are going to experience the first one coming to the general public. Now by and large we find that today many people regardless of the exposure to the virus they are in the constant fear and anxiety. Now that is nothing but because of the information about the virus and what happens you see people are in constant fear and the very vulnerable group is the people who have this pre-existing disease like diabetes or hypertension or heart disease and all what happens you see they become very hyper vigilant to any symptoms for example a small cough comes a rise a small rise in temperature in the body immediately they overreact that they think that they get infected or they will pass the infection and so on. So that means by and large today most of the people during the pandemic even in the India they are in the constant fear and anxiety. The second thing is community level distressed. Now what are the community level distressed I mean even though we have to maintain social distance which the government advises and everything by and large when we go and interact with the people we always maintain some sort of a distance it is not only for the cautious it is something I will say it is because of the suspicion. That means the trusty level comes down it happens within the relatives it happens within the family also so the trust comes down the suspicious level it increases it is a second behavioral change we find it. The third one it is blaming of people who got ill now normally you know that during any disaster or if you find anyone has got some problem health related problem like cancer or something most of the time we what to say we find some empathy we find some sympathy towards a person and even during the natural disasters and all there are many altruistic people who go help and the people who got affected by the disasters. But today when we get an information that one is getting infected because of the coronavirus we start or people tend to blame the people they think that it is because of the irresponsibility they got the infuction. That means the empathy level or the altruism and the sympathy level is reducing that is the third behavioral change we find in this. The fourth one is people are trying to seek inappropriate health seeking behavior. Today we find that people are trying some sort of unproven methods or remedies for this coronavirus and also there is many marketing we can find the product has got some boosting the immune system it is working against actually working against the coronavirus. Now these products we really do not know whether it has got some scientific evidence or something but even though it does not have any impact on our body people are trying to seek these health seeking behavior because of the anxiety over this coronavirus and sometimes these alternate whatever may be the people trying it it can also be determined to help their health and it is also a waste of time waste of money and energy. That is another health seeking behavior is a unnecessary or I will say inappropriate health seeking behavior is another problem we find and the next one is the hoarding behavior so it is common that the common public always think that because of the pandemic there may be a shortage in the supply chain so they buy purchase everything they hold it but the concern here is exploitative businessman. Now this exploitative businessman what they try to do is they hold a lot of products they create demand in the market and finally they sell it in a very high price in order to make money during this during the COVID period so these are the some of the behavioral changes we find in the people and apart from this xenophobic attack which we have seen in some parts of North India so mistakenly we have some mistakenly some people have attacked some some of our Nathis brothers thinking that they are Chinese people so it's something comes in there so now you can see these are the psychological changes that behavioral changes comes among the general public. Now coming to the second one the medical professional or medicals so medical professional includes the doctors the nurses and all other who works in the healthcare or any healthcare workers now we know that they are the four front warriors of this coronavirus because they are the one who directly works with the coronavirus patient now normally it is something a high-risk work because they have the high risk of exposure and also the medical field is a one which is a high demanding work because it's more stressful if a doctor goes here for the 12 hours of time he has to constantly work with the patients and everything and he has to have the mask and everything he cannot maintain much social distance and all that means they have the high level or high risk of getting exposed to the virus now what happens to the doctor normally doctor generally they know the level of risk so the doctor also takes a risk of course the doctor has to take a reasonable level of risk in order to of course they have to save themselves also now here many doctors or the healthcare professional get into some sort of a conflict normally we call it as a cognitive dissonance the reason is the doctor has to save a patient because it is a professional ethics so one side comes a professional ethics the second many doctors also have a altruistic tendency they also kind out they want to help the patient or something so altruism comes in the second end and at the same time the doctor also has a personal fear most of the time the doctor even sometimes the doctor may not even fear about their own life but they fear about their loud ones and the children suppose if the doctor is getting infected probably the doctor may pass the infection to the their children's and the loud ones now you can see the three the triangle the three corners of the triangle the one is a professional ethics the one is the altruism the other the third one is the personal fear now most of the time the doctor and the healthcare workers gets into the conflict in this triangle the three parts of the triangle so that is another one which is happening to the doctor that means the doctor or the one who are going to experience high emotionality high stress and there are more chances that the doctors may also get into some psychological problem like PTSD which is called post traumatic stress disorder then the next stakeholder then the major behavioral change where we can find it in the children's normally we know that children's are very active and children's they want to be very playful and they want to be playful with their peer group most of the time when they are separated from the peer group they find some sort of a separation and they find some sort of a boredom and loneliness now this boredom and loneliness changes their behavioral pattern for example their routine schedule changes they go for a long sleeping hours and probably if there is no proper intervention with them if the parents are not engaging with the children normally they spend most of their time in their mobile gadgets in videos and other inappropriate medias that will totally change the psychological health of the children's so that's what for the children's also it is going to have a big impact apart from the medicals and the general people and the next one is the affected people when coming to the affected people I can divide the affected people into two types one is affected by the coronavirus you know that once when one is affected by the coronavirus the government takes them to a quarantine in a quarantine probably they may be there for 20 days or 21 days something like that 14 days to 21 days something but actually many people think that quarantine will not have an impact but quarantine is a one which is going to have the maximum impact because the same in the SARS-1 period in China they have done a study in the study people who got into quarantine when they are in the quarantine for more than 10 days they are likely to experience this post-traumatic stress disorder it's nothing but anxiety and depression and also they found that after the people come from the quarantine even they recover from the coronavirus after three years after the recovery period also many quarantine people are poor in reporting work and they have got high alcohol abuse and also they more than 20% to 25% they found that people the quarantine people or the affected people avoid crowded places and public places so it clearly shows that the psychological impact even after the SARS even after the coronavirus even after the quarantine period is also very long so that's a reason we need to properly intervene the quarantine people so there should be a constant psychological help for the quarantine people then coming to the affected people the second type of affected people probably there I will say that they may not get affected probably their loud ones or their family members got affected or probably they would have expired or dead or something now in this case these people apart from depression they will also experience a lot of anger and irritation now this anger or this sort of anger or whatever may be it will be directed towards the health care or directed towards the government and directed towards the common public so they are also the one who is going to get most affected now this is what the in brief the major psychological changes we find among the various people now I want to get into the next topic this part of the topic what psychological symptoms generally people will experience during this pandemic period or let me put it in another way if you want to know whether I'm in a good mental health during this psychological or during this pandemic period so whether my quality of life is good whether I'm in a good mental health now there are some indicators now I'm going to talk about some of the symptoms which the people is going to experience to this pandemic period when they experience high level of stress so the first and foremost is the insomnia there is a lack of sleep now normally insomnia for some people even before the coronavirus they may have an insomnia problem accepting them during this corona period after this pandemic if one gets an insomnia lack of sleep so when I say lack of sleep it can be it can manifest in different form the first one is the onset of the sleep for example you go to the bed by 11 o'clock so sometimes it may take 15 minutes to get into sleep or sometimes it may take even sometimes 30 minutes or one hour but 3 hours or 4 hours for example you go to the bed at 11 o'clock but you're not getting a sleep up till 3 o'clock or 4 o'clock or 5 o'clock then the person is suffering from an insomnia that is the lack of sleep or the second form probably they may get into a sleep but early morning wake up like 2 o'clock or 3 o'clock okay early morning wake up with a bad dream or something and then after 2 o'clock they wake up and then again they go for a sleep they may not get a sleep till in the morning now this is the first symptom which is I will say insomnia so which is not a healthy symptom the second symptom is the boredom and loneliness yes quite everyone in a point of life we will experience boredom and loneliness the question is how long and how intense if you're experiencing more boredom and loneliness throughout the day then that is also not a right sign the third one is the obsession see obsession means putting the same thought again and again if one is getting a same thought like fear of getting infected fear of getting infected for this they get into unnecessarily go and wash their hands for example yes the government advises frequent hand washing the medicals of visors but the thing is if you're not going outside if you're not in contact with any products or if you're not contact with an outsiders then there is no unnecessarily to wash for every 20 minutes or 30 minutes then it's something comes like a obsessive compulsive okay that is a disorder which is called obsessive compulsive disorder so there should be a reasonable amount of hand washing reasonable amount of making a taking a hygiene one so if one constantly gets a thought that they will get infected and because of that they have some compulsive behavior then that is a third symptom which I can call it as obsessive compulsive or obsessive symptom and the fourth one is the anxiousness so anxiousness sometimes it comes in the head palpitation okay like like you say the sweating and also the tremors and uncomfortableness irritation so that's a third symptom that's the next symptom we need to look for the next symptom is the depressive symptom so depressive symptom that can be many depressive symptoms but the very important is when you wake up in the early morning you should have a good mood suppose when people wake up in the early morning with a low mood okay after that what I what I'm going to do what is the purpose what was the purpose of living such a thought or some suicidal thought comes then that comes the depressive symptom and the next one is very important self-blame and rumination suppose before this corona period you would have taken some decision probably it may have some repercussion or it may have some consequences during this corona period any decision you would have taken before corona period and that effect you may find during this pandemic time yes it was taken it is a past it is a past but unnecessarily taking that past and ruminating brooding yourself is something which we call it as a self-blame and rumination which is also totally wrong reasonable level we can have but we cannot have it for a long period of time and then comes the the next one is a somatic problem somatic soma means it's a body unnecessary body pain without any reasonable physiological problems is also a symptom now these are all the brief symptoms which can experience but I want you to be very careful some sort of the symptoms many people will experience during this pandemic period so if you're experiencing this don't brand yourself you have gotten to anxiety or depression because you need to see what is the intensity and also because the psychological problem is something like a continuum that is low to high so sometimes we be in low sometime we may go to high again we may come to the low because it's a mood is something fluctuating so that is what the best indicator is whether it is affecting our day-to-day life that means your social functioning and occupational functioning has to be good if your social functioning and occupational functioning is not good you feel a lot of distress with yourself you're not concentrating on your studies then really we need to go for a some sort of a medical help for most of the time talk therapy itself will be a good thing only in a severe cases we need to go for some psychological intervention so this is the one set of behavior the second set of behavior the second set of psychological symptom which is a little bit severe is a maladaptive behavior when come to maladaptive behavior people during this pandemic period enter into extreme irritation and anger now this anger manifest in aggression or also sometimes in in form of a violence that is what you can see a person even in the news it came a quarantine person has killed a old lady and also a lot of domestic violence this and all during the pandemic period it's a maladaptive it's not right and also fighting with the police actually it's a normal it's not a normal so a normal man should understand this is a pandemic so we need to follow the rules we need to follow unnecessarily we should not go out and if you are losing your emotion because of the irritation probably we go so people go fight with other so that all the aggressions and violence happens during this and apart from the domestic violence and the very important is the alcohol abuse and this we can find in many people during this pandemic period so they take consume lot of alcohol beyond their limits what whatever they have taken before their pandemic period and apart from that they go for some recreational drugs and even if a person is going for a non-prescriptive sleep aid some something for the sleep it is also not a right behavior so these comes under the all your tobacco and also tobacco taking tobacco smoking everything comes under the maladaptive behavior now these are the symptoms many people will experience during this pandemic period and especially during this lockdown okay now as I told earlier these symptoms when people experience beyond a limit they may enter into anxiety depression which is a clinical anxiety which is a clinical depression and also PTSD which is a post-traumatic stress disorder now the question is how we need to intervene yes suppose by and large if you are experiencing any of the symptom mild symptoms you do not much bother about it okay we need to take some actions so okay what we can do and also what the government has to do so first coming to the intervention I will say that first and foremost we should not indulge in any or indulge or entertain any false information or rumors that's the first thing when you come across any false information rumors or something immediately we should not react actually we should respond so we should not much entertain this information we should have some good source information selected information and also information we need to keep it at the reasonable level or minimum level that's the first thing unnecessarily going and browsing all the information related to coronavirus unnecessarily getting panic there is no use at all so that's the first thing we need to take care the second is scheduling the scheduling in our life so we need to maintain a schedule for a day for example tomorrow morning wake up so six o'clock or seven o'clock i'm going to wake up so what is my schedule for the day so that schedule should be a holistic one so what the schedule should have is probably if you're a is aspirant studies okay what is your study time so what is your tv time so you should also have a time for games or activities or something and also very important you should have also some time for family activities so scheduling the time making a schedule for a week or for a month and following that routine will make you a better person and also will also prevent you from some psychological distress and also we need to try out some new things some develop some hobbies during this period this opportunity because it's a lockdown we are going to be in the house and the next one is socializing socializing right now we cannot have a direct contact because of the infection and everything so we can socialize through phone and social media but be careful we should not spend much time so in your schedule or in your schedule you should have a time a particular time for a phone or whatsapp or something and second thing is if you are likely to experience stress don't get into much argument some sort of a political argument into the thing because that will further magnify your stress normally try to see some happy news or try to get some good information so that the knowledge can be cultivated that's another thing we can do and very important avoid any type of a drugs alcohol or any type of a drugs we need to avoid and the next very important thing is we need to stop this risk-taking behavior because of the boredom and loneliness many people what they do is they go out they meet actually this is something risk-taking behavior so now we should know how to manage our boredom and loneliness within the house or within the within wherever we are so unnecessarily risk-taking behavior is something which will create problem for us at the same time it'll also create problem for the others and the family members the old age people and everything and social isolation should be never so whether we are introvert or extrovert does not matter in this time pandemic time we should try to socialize we should try to mingle with the people through social media or through phones or through and very important we should always talk with the positive people and don't try to get negative information when people sometimes gives negative information or negative vibration please don't take it because that will affect our psychological health always talk with the positive person positive people and also the positive information and people who are working in a corporates we need to avoid the long working hours today the corporate what happens you see their routine schedule also changes many corporate employees they wake up very late by 10 10 30 and they start their phone calls and they start their videos sorry for phone calls video calls and everything they don't have a proper break time they don't have a proper lunch time and evening time even till 8 o'clock 9 o'clock they go for a calls actually this is totally wrong so the HR of the companies or HR of the corporate should take should schedule so they should have a time like morning 10 o'clock it has to start some around 11 30 to 11 45 there should be a break so during the break time or 1 to 2 o'clock lunch break during the break time there should not be any phone calls mandatory they need to make it as a policy and evening 7 o'clock or whatever the timing they need to have a schedule so beyond the time no employee should work at the same time within the time all the meetings or any work has to be scheduled and thing now beyond this if one is getting a problem they should not suffer in silence they should seek help without any hesitation they can talk with some known peoples only if they have a severe symptom they can go for some psychological intervention when we go for psychological intervention so today we have a wonderful psychological techniques like cognitive behavioral therapy stress management therapy and all behavior modification therapy so now probably you may study you may be in the preparation so that time you may not focus on the preparation so what you need is a behavioral modification so we have many psychological method because during the lockdown period we can schedule it flexibly we can have a teleconsultation so they can do a teleconsultation so now there are many methods to counter this problems so in general the individual should take some sort of intervention in order to be mentally healthy or in order to have a good quality of life during this pandemic period now coming to the government the government has got a lot of responsibility we always generally there is a word that information is key now the government should try to give some unified public message because the various studies have shown that especially during the pandemic or epidemic when there is a higher satisfaction with the information it has highly correlated with the lower psychological distress so that means when people get information a unified information the right information during the pandemic period most of the time the psychological distress will be comparatively very very less so that's what the government should try to give better information and unified public message and the government should also try to control all the rumors and everything so periodically best information or good information has to be given to the public the second thing is prediction of likelihood when this coronavirus or pandemic is going to end of course it's very difficult as everyone says it's a virus has to decide when it is going to end but we have many mathematical modeling we have some wisdom we have knowledge based on this if the government can try to bring out some prediction for example this pandemic is going to end by next three months of time so that what is the course of action suppose if it is not going to end by three months of time if it's going to be end by another six months of time what is the course of action how we need to get prepared how the government will get prepared how the public has to get prepared how the competitive exams or any any competitive exams or anything education institution can be prepared so if the government brings out some plan even though it may have some political issues if the government are able to bring this type of a plan this information can make or can bring less psychological distress to the people that's the second thing the government has to focus the third thing which everyone knows economic revival so the government has to work out the government can work out the government already has prescribed some given as some fiscal stimulus and everything so apart from that giving impetus to the business houses industries and businessman and also individuals in the taxation also can give some relief to the people and very important the government has a high responsibility in protecting the high risk groups especially the medical professionals and also the healthcare workers and police and even the police and defense so they are the highest group which they have government has to take more intervention and very important the government has to bring mental health policies especially for the quarantine people and also the government has to identify who are all the vulnerable group and accordingly the health policy and the psychological intervention through teleconsulting has to be given apart from this the government can use all the artificial intelligence and smart technologies and everything so now this is how the government can intervene the individual can intervene so as I said this coronavirus does not or didn't respect any borders so it has crossed more than 200 plus countries now everyone is suffering the thing is we need to maintain a proper psychological health that is a very important task now we know that we are in uncertainty but we have to be very certain in our schedule and our ways and our routines and everything whatever the uncertainty definitely this coronavirus will have some sort of a psychological ramifications or psychological consequences in the people which is going to be long lasting because all the studies in the China during the SARS-1 period has told in fact I discuss about the quarantine and everything so that is what the government has to give more focus on the health policies and everything and also has to be very careful in maintaining this mental health mental health and mental health problems and strategically we should have a psychological defense and so that the we all the nation can like work and defend this long-lasting coronavirus and secure success and lead a quality and good standard of living and also a happy life thank you