Personal Behavior During Covid-19

Who would think that a hug is a luxury, and interacting with others would require at least being 2 meters apart? With the COVID-19 pandemic still surging at an alarming rate worldwide, one would think what can they do to slow down the spread? Having correct mental and psychological thinking can strengthen the mindset to cope with it. There are also some factors like promoting healthy eating, staying away from drugs and alcohol, seeking medical care when needed, and having a good relationship with your doctor that can definitely help maintain a positive attitude and keep up-to-date with COVID-19 information. We have to be safe and nice to everyone in order to get through this pandemic together.

Promoting good health is important to boost the immune system and prevent chronic pain and diseases. Most people think that having nutritious food, eating a well-balanced diet, getting enough sleep, drinking lots of water, and exercising regularly should be good enough, but they forget to manage their mental and emotional stress and well-being during the pandemic. Research has shown that people tend to eat more unhealthy foods to cope with their stress during this time, leading to increased obesity as a result (Parekh, Deierlein, 2020). Being overweight or obese is a leading cause of many chronic diseases such as diabetes, high blood pressure and cholesterol, which are all lethal to your health. Maintaining a healthy body mass index (BMI) will definitely decrease the risk of having such medical conditions. Since social distancing measures and wearing a non-surgical mask have become a new routine, most people begin to feel psychologically stressed out. This can increase the risk of cancer due to poor coping skills (National Cancer Institute, 2012). Wealthy people have no problem maintaining their lifestyles because they have easy access to the appropriate resources that enable them to keep themselves healthy, whereas low income people can only manage to fill their stomachs, regardless of whether the food they are eating is healthy or not (Sarafino, Smith, King, DeLongis, 2015, pg. 110). The most vulnerable groups are Indigenous people and people with disabilities, as most of them are homeless, live in poverty, engage in unhealthy behaviors that put them at risk for chronic diseases, and have little or no access to health services. Therefore, having access to appropriate health care resources is a main priority for them (Sarafino, Smith, King, Delongis, 2015, pg. 143).

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In addition to increasing obesity rates, drug and alcohol rates have also increased during the pandemic. More people begin turning to alcohol and illegal drugs because they are more worried about the future, potentially losing their jobs, what will happen to their kids’ education, and financial problems. This causes them to be more worried and stressed out than ever before, so they turn to substances such as alcohol, marijuana, smoking, and vaping to help them cope with this stress. Although this can help them relieve stress temporarily, this can have long term negative consequences on their mental and physical health (Drug Free Kids Canada, 2020). Smoking and vaping increase the risk of COVID-19 and associated complications because it weakens the lung’s functioning and affects the immune system. Consequently, it will worsen COVID-19 symptoms, and not prevent or treat them (Drug Free Kids Canada, 2020). Fentanyl is especially dangerous because it can slow down breathing rate. As a result, COVID-19 can increase the risk of dying from an overdose (Drug Free Kids Canada, 2020).

In order to minimize the spread of COVID-19, people are now staying at home more often. They begin turning to media sources to prevent their boredom and keep up-to-date with new information regarding COVID-19. Research shows that the media plays a role during the pandemic through the spread of misinformation, fake news, and conspiracy theories (Powell, 2020). There have been many theories about the origins of this virus, ranging from wet markets to chemical leakage out of a laboratory, as well as fake products online claiming to cure COVID-19 (Powell, 2020). A drug called Hydroxychloroquine was proposed to cure COVID-19, but was disapproved by the World Health Organization (WHO, 2020). Throughout the media, there are a lot of stories about increasing racist slurs or comments toward Asians; even worse, some of these racist behaviors escalate to physical assaults because they believe the myths that the virus originated from China (Devakumar, Shannon, Bhopal, Abubakar, 2020). This leads to paranoia and fear that all Asians carry this virus and are responsible for it, especially the Chinese (Devakumar, Shannon, Bhopal, Abubakar, 2020). During this pandemic, people begin to use online video communication to do their work at home and connect with others to express their feelings and concerns about the pandemic to ease their stress and anxiety (Cox, 2020). Schools have also closed down, altering the routines of schoolchildren and forcing them to find alternative ways of learning (Robson, 2020). However, this may negatively impact their development, level of educational attainment, and mental health, especially among children from lower classes (Robson, 2020).

Prior to COVID-19, people would regularly go out and interact with others in a normal fashion. With social distancing measures to prevent the spread, this has lead to increasing social anxiety and hope to return to a normal life as soon as possible (Addelman, 2020). Social distancing leads to isolation and loneliness that can have negative mental health consequences (Ringer, 2020), especially among those who are from lower classes or have low-paying jobs (Addelman, 2020). The reason why people refuse to comply with these measures is because it takes a while for them to adjust to the new reality of the COVID-19 pandemic (Chait, 2020).

Young people think that because of their strong immune systems, they aren’t that vulnerable to COVID-19, so instead of following social distancing guidelines and wearing a mask in public, they go out and have parties with large gatherings of friends, thinking that nothing bad will happen to them if they contract the virus (Cummins, 2020). Some people are also willing to go as far as protesting against orders regarding social distancing and wearing a mask because they don’t want to follow them and that they think they are being brainwashed by the government (Cummins, 2020). This shows that they underestimate the risk and severity of COVID-19 because they are prone to the optimism bias and think that they are less likely to contract it than others (Cummins, 2020).

As countries ease restrictions, economies are slowly bouncing back, and they don’t want to have second and third waves, but unfortunately, this is not the case for some countries. The only way for life to return to a pre-pandemic state is if there is an effective cure or vaccine for the virus. However, medical experts are not too optimistic that there will be one developed soon. Even if there is one, it may not provide full protection, but hopefully the symptoms won’t be too severe if someone who contracted the virus got vaccinated (Stankiewicz, 2020). In order for a vaccine to be approved, it has to go through three phrases before it can be approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Since many people want an effective vaccine to return back to normal life, scientists are rushing against the clock to develop a vaccine that works for COVID-19 (Nazario, 2020). This causes them to be physically and mentally stressed out because they don’t know how long the pandemic will last and fear that they will have to live like this for the rest of their lives. What they can do now is follow local government guidelines, including washing their hands, avoiding large gatherings, wearing a non-surgical mask in public, and self- isolating themselves if they think they may have been exposed to the virus, to prevent and minimize the spread (NIH, 2020). However, some people who have the virus may be asymptomatic. This is why nation-wide testing for the virus is highly recommended, but it would cause a lot of financial burden on the public healthcare system.

Some people refuse to go see a doctor when they are sick because they are afraid that they may be stigmatized for their illness, e.g. HIV/AIDS. Also, some people may not trust western medicine because of its potential negative side effects. These people are more likely to turn to alternative medicine because they are unsatisfied with traditional treatment and believe that alternative medicine gives them more control over their health and is more compatible with their beliefs and values about health (Astin, 1998). This is especially true for COVID-19 because people want to have stronger immune systems to stay healthy, and believe that these alternative medicine treatments can protect them from contracting it. However, there is no evidence that these treatments prevent or cure the virus (NIH, 2020). When patients visit their doctor regarding an illness, the doctor may not have enough time to thoroughly explain the issues and procedures to the patient or use too many sophisticated medical terms that the patient may not understand (Sarafino, Smith, King, DeLongis, 2015, pg. 229). Eventually, this may lead the patient to feel frustrated and stop seeing the doctor completely.

All of these facts mentioned above explain how COVID-19 has impacted and changed our daily lives. In turn, these changes cause us to adapt to the reality that life won’t be the same as it used to be for a while. The COVID-19 pandemic has drawn comparisons to the Spanish flu, which infected around 500 million people and killed approximately 50 million people (Fottrell, 2020). However, Spanish flu mortality rates were high for young people, while COVID-19 mortality rates are high among the elderly (Fottrell, 2020). Regarding COVID-19, we need to stay calm and safe, have a positive mindset, be kind to each other, follow local government health policies, and learn how to cope with stress effectively in order to get through this difficult and unideal time and return to normal life soon. At this rate, it is uncertain how long this pandemic will last and when life will return to normal. This causes people to have financial, mental, and physical stress because they don’t know when they can return to work or school and interact with others normally again like they used to. Some people worry that life will never return to normal, while others are optimistic that normal life will resume again soon (Addelman, 2020). At this moment, it is unknown how long the pandemic will last and when an effective vaccine will be available, so until then, we have to stay together and look out for each other during this difficult time if we want things to return to normal quickly.

References

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