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Like many issues we face these days, Covid seems to have driven people into two camps. On one hand there are those who regard any any public socialising as irresponsible and for whom opening schools could potentially set off a deadly ‘second wave’. For those on the other side, the whole lockdown was an unjustified attempt to control the population by sinister state forces who ultimately aim to forcibly vaccinate every citizen – and kill them that way. Although seemingly polarised, these groups are united in that their thinking is being driven by fear.
Back in March, as the gravity of the situation became clear and the national response to Covid belatedly rumbled into gear, one of the government’s tasks was to get people to appreciate the risk. A certain amount of urgency in the message was undoubtedly necessary. But we are now facing a dilemma as a society, once you have terrified people, how do you get them to behave rationally?
Recently I read that two-thirds of parents were worried about sending back their children to school in September. This was despite that from early on, the evidence was that children are at very minimal risk from Covid-19, and this has become even clearer as the evidence piles up. The Swedish authorities, who didn’t close schools at all, but introduced some basic safety measures, found no significant increased risk to students or teachers, and every reputable authority in the UK has endorsed the return to school. But still the anxiety in the country is palpable.
In all this, the role of social media, as usual, has been key. Confined to our homes and inactive, we become armchair experts, selectively devouring whatever sources seem to confirm our worldviews. Whether it is the pandemic itself or the lockdown that is worrying you, there is an inexhaustable stream of content to engage with, more fuel for speculation, rumour and circular arguments. We can’t seem to think about anything else.
As an OCD sufferer (my trigger is not Covid-related), this is familiar territory. During an OCD attack, the perception of risk becomes paralysing, all-encompassing. Whereas everyday life involves numerous risks that we screen out, you can only see one, and the more you look, the more you see. You are compelled to act out a behaviour that makes you feel safe. Thus, your behaviour and life are controlled by your fear.
The tense state of alertness that many are now living in might seem like ‘staying safe’, but being in a state of fear and isolation actually weakens the immune system. The work of neuroscientist Candance Pert has shown that when we experience human contact and physical touch, molecules like oxytocin are produced which as well as creating a warm, safe feeling, actually help defend our bodies from viral attack, competing with viruses for landing sites on cells. Those who are shielding could actually be lowering their own resilience.
But hang on, let’s not demonise fear unneccessarily. Healthy fear is a useful emotion, for thousands of years it helped us to survive and evolve as a species when we lived alongside predators and regular threats of tribal violence. All animals seem to have it, as far as we know. The problem is that humans also have the ability to speculate, imagining future risk scenarios, which trigger that primal fear again and again. We construct narratives that perpetuate it. And we make fear-based decisions, which are usually not rational.
The writer and counsellor Bob Van Oosterhout offers valuable perspectives on fear-based thinking, diagnosing it as:
“a mental habit that persists long after the immediate threat has passed. It narrows our focus…makes us vulnerable to manipulation and interferes with problem solving while leading us to form rigid, emotionally-based opinions that are immune to input and logic…our mind is pulled to simple, quick solutions and what seemed to work before, even when that is the worst possible thing we could do.”
My concern is that in the wake of this pandemic we will have many people who will have become locked into aversion and avoidance, rather than embracing life, long after this particular risk has passed. Coaxing people out of isolation is one of the tasks for caring professionals in the weeks and months ahead.
To move beyond the straitjacket of fear, we can explore approaches like mindfulness which involves watching the patterns of your mind play out, and noticing how waves of emotion interact with your thoughts. Doing this allows you to gradually dis-identify from your fear, to see it as merely part of your evolutionary inheritance that gets hijacked occasionally by the narratives that play out in your mind. In this way we can transform our relationship with fear in general, not just one specific fear.
Much of the current planning around events, workplaces, holidays etc. rests on the hopeful assumption that sometime soon there will be an effective Covid vaccine; but there is no guarantee that of that whatsoever. The ‘new normal’ could look more like living with the virus rather than wiping it out. Eventually, with effective therapies, Covid should lose its novelty ‘fear power’and join the patchwork of other health risks that we all navigate daily. In the meantime, we need to make the transition from a fear state that keeps our lives and actions frozen, to a more effective mindset.
Van Oosterhout offers further guidance:
“Fear narrows our awareness. Caution expands it. Fear-Based Thinking pulls our thoughts toward simplistic or old solutions…(it) drives us to either cower and hide or charge forward with our head down. Concern leads us to develop and adapt strategies that fit with changing circumstances…Breaking the cycle of Fear-Based Thinking allows us to see a larger picture and relevant details more clearly. We can respond rather than react; learn, adapt, and strategize rather than grab onto what we did before.”
http://www.bobvanoosterhout.com/id139.html
Daily life is always about accommodating risks. The fact is, we take a risk with our health every time we step out of our front door. There are plenty of infections floating around that might make a vulnerable person sick and other things that could finish us off much more quickly. When the motor car first went into production many people were terrified, but I have never heard of anyone being scared of cars despite the fact that they whizz past us all the time and kill five people every day in the UK.
As daily deaths from Covid also dwindle into single figures, there is debate about why this is happening despite the cases slowly climbing again. Is the virus weakening or are we getting better at treating it? Whatever the case, figures cited in several newspapers last week stated that you are currently five times more likely to die of flu or pneumonia than Covid in the UK.
Meanwhile, with our incessant focus still on the vanishing risk of Covid death, we are neglecting the tidal wave of mental distress that we have created. When the final tally is made, accounting for increased poverty, inequality, loneliness, obesity, suicides and avoidance of hospital for other conditions, many believe that our collective response to Covid-19 will have resulted in more deaths than the virus itself…am I fear-mongering now?
At the start of the year, the nation seemed to be completely obsessed with the ‘catastrophic’ risk of Brexit, or the scandal at its delay, but almost everyone has forgotten about that now. Outside your door, right now, the world is doing its best to carry on and would welcome your contribution, however small. Wear a mask, keep an eye on intelligent media outlets. You’ve done what you can sensibly do. Now, where do you want to put your attention? I choose life.
Tom George 