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How COVID-19 Is Impacting Mental Health
A recent review of over 40 studies and prior pandemics offers useful insights.
COVID-19 came upon the world cloaked in ambiguity — the medical presentation poorly characterized, the expert advice about safety from infection a moving target.
Initially thought to be primarily a respiratory virus, we saw that the novel coronavirus affected other organ systems, causing vascular and clotting problems, resulting in strokes and pulmonary emboli, heart problems, strange skin rashes including the iconic “COVID toes,” suspicious neurological symptoms like sudden loss of sense of smell and taste, and an ability to spread more easily than initially thought.
A crashing wave?
The psychiatric consequences of COVID-19 are similarly emerging. There is concern that we may be facing a “crashing wave of neuropsychiatric” symptoms, according to a paper by Emily Troyer, Jordan Kohn, and Suzi Hong (2020), including brain inflammation, immunological damage to nerve cells, direct infection of the brain, and related factors.
Because COVID-19 virus enters cells via ACE2 receptors, it may affect stress and mood via the “Renin-Angiotensin-Aldosterone System” (RAAS), which regulates blood pressure, electrolyte balance, and other key…
