COVID-19: Psychological and Psychosocial Impact, Fear, and Passion

Abstract

In December 2019, the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) emerged in Wuhan, Hubei Province of China. Unlike common cold and flu, COVID-19 is much more contagious, and its spread rate is exponential. More than 8,999,659 cases of COVID-19 and 469,587 deaths have now been reported to the World Health Organization (as of June 23, 2020) [1]. As soon as the World Health Organization declared an emergency, the movement of one-third of world’s population (∼2.6 billion people) has been restricted and controlled by their respective governments [2], aiming to prevent further spread and to minimize the risk of COVID-19 infection. As an example, the Indian government enforced a nationwide 21-day lockdown on March 25, 2020, which now has been extended to 40 days. That means 1.3 billion citizens are banned from leaving their homes under the coronavirus lockdown [3]. In China, 760 million people (when the outbreak reached its peak), 60 million in Italy, 165 million in Bangladesh, and 142 million in Russia were forced to undergo lockdown due to the pandemic [4] (as of April 9, 2020). The United States is no exception, as it has become an epicenter now in terms of COVID-19 confirmed and death cases. In the work of Brooks et al. [5], the psychological impact of quarantine using three electronic databases is reported.