The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in August that symptoms of anxiety had tripled and depression symptoms had quadrupled among a group of 5,470 adults as compared with a survey sample from 2019. Meanwhile mental health services have been stretched worldwide. One reason is that mental health personnel and the facilities they work in have been reassigned to COVID-related tasks during the crisis.

All of us need to sustain and enhance our psychological resilience to weather the daily toll of activity restrictions, rising case numbers, hospitalizations and deaths. A set of simple measures known as psychological first aid or mental health first aid can enable people to help family, friends and others in their communities who experience psychological distress from pandemic fatigue, COVID convalescence, or the loss of a friend or relative. Read the entire article at Scientific American