Pandemic Fatigue: What It Is And How It Affects Us
Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have been incorporating all kinds of habits into our daily lives to protect ourselves and reduce the number of infections. Masks, social distancing, and frequent handwashing became behaviors we did every day.
With the passage of time, the fear at the beginning of the pandemic has transformed into exhaustion, tiredness from living in a crisis that is lasting too long and that we have experienced with a lot of stress.
People have begun to be less careful in recent months even though we are already in the second wave of the pandemic. It seems that health measures are no longer taken so seriously, a mixture of distrust towards the authorities and the fatigue of not being able to recover our old normal life: it has arrived pandemic fatigue Let’s see what it consists of.
After almost 10 months of pandemic, taking care of ourselves in every possible way to avoid contagion by COVID-19, not being able to lead a normal life and facing significant economic losses, Many people have begun to be a little careless and no longer take the measures to avoid contracting the coronavirus so seriously
Although the data indicates that we are experiencing the second wave of the pandemic, many people are beginning to think “if I have not been infected before, why should I be infected now?”
The World Health Organization has begun to talk about a new term to describe the psychological situation and the health neglect that many people are beginning to manifest: pandemic fatigue. It is about the lack of motivation to follow the protection and prevention recommendations, a lack of motivation that increases as time goes by.
According to experts, pandemic fatigue is a natural response to the crisis. Confinement, social distancing, having to wear masks and not being able to do many of the previously normal things has meant a very profound change in our lives. As the crisis has lengthened, the longer its capacity to affect our mental health is which has resulted in this situation of demotivation and lack of interest in what to do to avoid the virus or how the situation is going in general.
The WHO has already carried out several surveys to find out what percentage of the population is showing the symptoms of pandemic fatigue. In the European case it has been seen that About 60% of the population manifests this problem as a consequence of sustained and unresolved adversity what the coronavirus crisis is assuming to be, with data indicating that emotional exhaustion is even worse than it was at the peak in March.
Symptoms of pandemic fatigue
As we have mentioned, pandemic fatigue can be defined as the emotional exhaustion caused by the current pandemic situation, especially due to concerns that arise around the restrictions and measures imposed to reduce COVID-19 infections. This fatigue leads to a loss of motivation to stay informed about the pandemic and we can even stop following preventive measures to stay healthy.
The main consequence of pandemic fatigue is that the population is relativizing the risk of COVID-19. That is to say, there are more and more people who do not see contracting the virus as something so serious or do not believe that there is much chance of them becoming infected, despite the fact that global epidemiological data indicate just the opposite. As the population stops following the measures to avoid infections or does not strictly comply with them, These measures proposed and imposed by governments are losing effect
Although the idea of pandemic fatigue could be considered quite recent, a series of symptoms that define it have already been proposed:
Pandemic fatigue and stress
As we mentioned, Both in a pandemic and in any other crisis situation, it is normal that, in the long run, there will be a loss of interest and the mood is low with depressive symptoms. If the crisis is very long, it is normal for the population to begin to take the situation less seriously, although they do not stop experiencing it with concern and their mental health is affected.
At the beginning of the pandemic, the most common feelings were fear, because it was not known how events would evolve; resignation, seeing how all our plans and lifestyle fell apart; and the surprise, since practically no one imagined at the beginning of 2020 that we were going to experience a long global pandemic.
However, as the months have passed, the initial fear has been replaced by fatigue and a certain carelessness, combined with anger as people are fed up with having to reduce social contacts especially now that Christmas is approaching.
But although there have been several feelings and positions that have changed throughout the pandemic, it has been one emotion that has been by our side all the time: stress. In fact, stress has been the cause of the pandemic fatigue that we are currently experiencing.
Stress is a mechanism that is set in motion when a person experiences a highly demanding situation, in which they have to put many physical and mental resources and become tense trying to overcome the problem they face in the best way. If the problem that triggers this response persists for a long time, the person wears out physically and mentally causing you to make more mistakes and become more vulnerable to the damage that this situation may cause.
In our case, the problem has been the pandemic, which has not yet been solved. We have been stressed during these last 10 months, a stress that has combined with other more personal stress that we had before, becoming a real time bomb for our mental health. It’s a vicious circle: the longer the stress lasts, the more fatigue there will be and consequently, more tiredness, exhaustion and irritability, together with less desire to comply with health measures.
How to avoid it?
Governments and health authorities are obliged to avoid pandemic fatigue in the population by applying measures, educating citizens and taking sufficient prevention with the intention of ensuring that people do not take too lightly the great danger in the one that COVID-19 has become.
Taking this into account and recommended by the WHO in Europe, Governments should consider the following to avoid the effects of pandemic fatigue
We must understand that the less seriously we take protection and prevention measures, such as wearing a mask properly, washing our hands frequently, going out only for essentials and reducing social contacts, the more vulnerable we will be to COVID-19 Likewise, to prevent this situation from occurring, we must follow the following recommendations that will help us not feel pandemic fatigue and, therefore, not stop being responsible for our health and that of others.
But What is most important of all this is to educate about stress, the main risk factor for presenting not only pandemic fatigue but any other psychological problem. By properly treating stress and acquiring strategies to cope with it, we are obtaining important protection not only against pandemic fatigue but also against the virus, since as we were saying, the less we let our guard down, the less likely we will be to become infected.
We must understand that going to a psychologist is not a bad thing, much less now that we are experiencing such a stressful situation, only comparable to the Second World War. That everyone is going through the same thing does not mean that the person who asks for help is weak, but rather on the contrary, they are a strong person who seeks to stay healthy and survive this pandemic that is causing so much damage economically, socially, health and psychologically.
García, M. (2020). Pandemic fatigue due to Covid: what are its symptoms and how is it overcome? Spain: medical writing.
Chavarrías, M. (2020). Pandemic fatigue; What it is, how it manifests and how to treat it. Spain: elDiario.es.
Uricare, J. (2020) Pandemic fatigue: what is it and how to treat it? Venezuela: eldiario.
