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Mental health and COVID ‐19: are we really all in this together?
Author(s) -
McGorry Patrick
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
medical journal of australia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.904
H-Index - 131
eISSN - 1326-5377
pISSN - 0025-729X
DOI - 10.5694/mja2.50834
Subject(s) - covid-19 , mental health , psychology , virology , internet privacy , medicine , computer science , psychiatry , outbreak , infectious disease (medical specialty) , disease
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID19) pandemic has been a oncein100years event. The scale of the disaster overshadows all others in living memory. Most disasters are focal and timelimited. This one will span a considerable period of time and the economic impact will last years. This means the mental health effects will be deeper and more sustained than in other disasters. A survey during the first month of the pandemic in Australia assessed the nation’s “temperature” early, as reported in this issue of the Journal.1 This survey and other information2,3 confirm that the initial mental health impact has been severe, and worse may be coming. Scientific models predicted that Australia would face a second curve of mental ill health and suicide,4,5 and this has now clearly arrived. We have been willing to turn our society and lives upside down to flatten the COVID19 curve. The same commitment is now required to flatten the mental health curve.