What the Coronavirus Reveals About Our Fears and Mental Health

Fear is driving the conversation and our behavior.

Photo by Joseph Gruenthal on Unsplash

The world is coming to an end. Or is it?

Stock market trading halted. The largest companies in the world urging their employees to work from home. The National Basketball Association suspending play. No fans permitted at major sporting events or tournaments. Colleges and universities — closed for the rest of the school year. Travel bans, social distancing… it’s the season of fear and hysteria.

And yes, it may in fact just be a season. The thing is, no one really knows.

“There is still considerable uncertainty around the fatality rates of COVID-19 and it likely varies depending on the quality of local healthcare,” Francois Balloux, Professor of Computational Systems Biology at University College London. Source: Science Alert

What we know is that COVID-19, known as the coronavirus, started in Wuhan, China and is now having a devastating impact on health, the world economy and everyone’s psyche. It’s officially been declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) and with good…