Monday, April 20, 2020

Mental health challenges from COVID crisis

Organizational Psychologist at Forte Consultancy Rozaine Cooray called on society to recognize the large mental health problems that the COVID crisis brings. She said given that it is expected that incomes will fall greater than they did during the Global Financial Crisis society should look to actively mitigate the linked mental health issues. Cooray was speaking as part of a Ceylon Chamber of Commerce webinar on mental health on 20 April.

Cooray described the COVID restrictions as going against human nature and that long periods of isolation would have taken a toll on the mental health of certain individuals. Cooray said families would have to discuss and collectively understand the loss of income that the crisis would bring.

Dr. Kayathri Periasamy called on people to maintain caution and social distancing even after the curfew has been lifted where possible. She advised families with people returning to work to adopt disinfection strategies on exit and return.

Dr. Periasamy cited Sweden as a country that had better outcomes during the crisis due to their pre-existing large adoption of work from home schemes. Dr. Periasamy said that given the rates of mortality when lifting curfew, it would make sense to discriminate based on age. She said the continued success of mitigating the health crisis would remain with society acting responsibly.

 

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