Covid Zero takes a toll on Shanghaians' mental health

• Published date: 28 May 2022
• Publication title: Colombo Gazette

By Vikram MukeshMental health issue has emerged as one of the major casualty in China's financial hub Shanghai which has seen lockdown since late March due to resurgence of Covid 19. Innumerable cases of anxiety, depression and mental health disorders have been reported from the town contrary to the government cla im that it has ramped up efforts to tackle the mental health consequences by providing psychological resources to hospitals and residential communities while some self-help lines were also opening longer.The World Health Report report stated that almost two months of lockdown heavily disrupted work .

People were isolated, lives were turned upside down and social circles were faded. Loneliness, fear of infection, suffering and death for oneself and for loved ones, grief after bereavement and financial worries have also all been cited as stressors leading to anxiety and depression .

Among hea lth workers, exhaustion has been a major trigger for suicidal thoughts, according to WHO's scientific report.Individua l health, social insecurity, isolation, lack of access to livelihood etc are f ertile ground for mental health issues but health ex perts said that the Chinese leadership has miserably to learn from the past ex perience.

China was the first one to report coronavirus in two and a half years ago with Wuhan being an epicentre of the virus and yet steps undertaken to deal with mental health and related issues due to longer period of lockdown,were inadequate .A study published in Lancet Respiratory Medicine journal has made startling revelations about people who suffered through the virus' first wave.

The study underscored the pandemic's lasting burden and said that two years after being hospitalized with Covid-19, more than half of patients still experience symptoms like fatigue and sleep disruption . The findings clearly pointed out challenge of dealing w ith Covid's aftermath as millions of people and some of them children and teens and grapple with lingering symptoms that affect everything from mental health to their ability to work and contribute to the economy.

The study, led by doctors at the China-Japan Friendship Hospital in Beijing, came even as China doubled down on its stringent Covid Zero strategy while much of the world lifts restrictions and attempts to live with the virus .Health experts squarely blamed the Chinese leadership for having failed to understand the ill effects of lockdown on the mental health.

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