Hi readers. I am again detracted by a simple but serious comment:
“If corona is controversial why people are afraid of it”?
Thought provoking, isn’t it?
My abrupt answer was “like the word cancer which is more horrific than the disease. We know cancer is curable but hearing the word “cancer” patient takes it for granted that he/she will die of it.
Then, I decided to turn this question into a blog thinking that there might be people who may be true follower of the writer and wait for what is coming next? Anything new or an ancillary activity? So dear readers, this time read about an ancillary activity “the fear factor”.
Fear of disease, fear of outsider, fear of racism, fear of prejudice and xenophobia, fear of unknown, fear of mis and dis-information, fear of melting of economy, fear of uncertainty and what not? Since January 2020, all types of media have been covering corona pandemic with hourly update on the persons affected and the death toll.
This continuous filing up of our heart and minds with frightening news: the main cause of fear made almost everyone so jittery, nervous and confuse to the extent that people came out on roads to protest for freedom of moving around without wearing mask and remaining at prescribed social distance.
Protests against corona virus restrictions started in Berlin, Germany in June 2020 while “anti-mask and anti-vaccine (Bill Gate specific)” protest started in August 2020 and were so severe that even Berlin Police was unable to control. Protesters held placards with slogans like: Corona a: false alarm., we are being forced to wear a muzzle., natural defense instead of vaccination., we will not vaccinate our self with Bill Gate vaccine., and we are the second wave. They chanted, “we’re here and we’re loud, because we are being robbed of our freedom.”
All this was indicative of what people were experiencing during the COVID-19 pandemic: various psychological and physiological difficulties such as fear, panic, phobia, and heightened anxiety, feeling of slavery that increased due to lockdown and immediate physiological effects on our mental health due to wearing masks which make breathing difficult especially in scorching heat of summer. The constant feeling of threat has not only induced in people fear and phobia but may have some other subtle effects on our psychology.
Fear of disease and contagion forced everyone to remain isolated, conventional, rebellious, and eccentric. To understand the psychology behind these responses we must listen to the saying/advice of our elderly people comprising pre-historic observations transferred from generation to generation. The analysis will reveal that even before the birth of modern medicine, infectious diseases were the biggest threat to the survival of mankind which was taken care off by our wonderful immune system. Since it consumes ~30% of the energy of the victim, they were thus left lethargic, fatigued, and sleepy meaning thereby that they were unable to go out for hunting and thus, remained deprived of adequate food to fight the illness.
To counter this, humankind have developed over the time “unconscious psychological responses known as “behavioral immune system” (BIS).
Mark Schaller: A Professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia has introduced this term which refer to
“a suite of psychological mechanisms that allow individual organisms to detect the potential presence of disease-causing parasites in their immediate environment, and to engage in behaviors that prevent contact with pathogen. Similarly, BIS can reduce the contact of human being with potential pathogens”.
Why BIS modify our thinking? Schaller argues, that “many of our tacit social rules that we practice are there, but these tacit rules cannot be accepted. For example, in Asian countries, anyone can visit anyone, at any time, at home or out of home, can stay with relatives and can eat with them as and when they like. This causality is totally unacceptable in western countries where people cannot even imagine such activities. One must fix a day you want to spend with nabors. There are fixed hours during which one can visit friends and relatives after taking appointment, so much so they visit maximum once a week their elderly people residing in old homes. They practice this as per unconscious guidance of their BIS to protect themselves and their family members. This is fear of disease. In Asian countries, this is considered the biggest abuse and insult of the blood relations.
Adequate disposal of human waste also can help reducing the risk of infection. Technologically advanced countries understand the significance of these norms thus, people respect and follows them. In developing countries people do not understand the significance of these norms. Look at Karachi: the so-called financial hub of Pakistan, where education and population is the highest, but people generally do not observe the accepted norms of cleanliness which has converted Karachi into “Kachrachi” (the city of garbage). People take pride in flaunting the norms instead of respecting them.
There may be other countries with similar defiance attitude and all of them are viewed as those who are signaling that they may break other relevant rules that can keep them away from disease. This has induced the fear of racism.
This fear is so fearful that people started studying “racial disparities” related with COVID 19 pandemic (link 1).
The results indicated that among the adults tested for COVID-19 in midwestern academic health system, positive COVID-19 was associated with Black race. Both race and poverty were associated with higher risk of hospitalization, but only poverty was associated with higher risk of intensive care unit admission. These findings can be helpful in targeting mitigation strategies for racial disparities in the incidence and outcomes of COVID-19.
“Thus, a new and frightening paradigm is open, and it is not clear where it will end up”.
South Asian people especially those from India and Pakistan are largely looked upon as unclean people in the outside world. Also, religious people who go abroad for preaching are considered among those who do not follow standard norms of cleanliness.
“This is probably one reason that reports of racism and religious discrimination toward people of Asian heritage have surged during the coronavirus pandemic”.
The question is why BIS do not work under such situations?
According to Schaller, “the influence of BIS varies from individual to individual, “Some people have particularly sensitive behavioral immune system that makes them react extra-strongly to things that they interpret as a potential infection risk.” Others whose BIS does not work so strongly generally ignore even if there are strong signals.
“Thus, people who disrespect the cleanliness norms can be interpreted as disease spreader who not only risk themselves but other as well. Such people and communities force others to become more distrustful and strangers. This is the fear of outsider”
Meaning thereby that people who do not observe the specific norms to protect themselves and others made people afraid that they knowingly or unknowingly will spread disease. This may result in fear of prejudice and xenophobia.
Some news went viral before the emergence of “delta variant” that new wave of corona will be the most swerve of all viral infections. The whole world will be locked down and the global economy will melt down like butter on the heat, and above all a warning from CDC, America for a paralysis disease in children of up to the age of 5 years made the things worst (link 2). This is the fear of unknow.
Corona induced a standstill in all the economies in 2020 as the countries have imposed restriction on movement of man and material to check the spread of virus.
“The Global Economic Prospects of June 2020 predicted 5.2% contraction in global GDP, but the World Bank (link 3) reported a graceful but vigorous post COVID-19 pandemic recovery in the global economy in 2021 with an uneven rate. Despite picking up, the level of global GDP in 2021 remained ~3.2% which is below pre-pandemic projections and will remain so for an extended period. Thus, if the pandemic continues the global economic activity will be affected. The world bank thus projected an uncertain outlook for low-income, conflict hit and low vaccination countries where growth rate is expected to remain low at ~ 2.9%.
This is not a healthy sign because these contractions will reverse years of progress toward development goals and will plunge millions of people back into poverty. This is the fear of economic meltdown whose worst affects are expected to be on emerging markets and developing countries because their per capita income will see the highest contraction since 1870. The loss of trade and tourism, dwindling remittances and tight financial monitoring due to mounting debt would be more than was anticipated or forecasted (Pakistan is a living example of this situation).
The policies put in place to contain the disease appeared more responsible for this than the disease itself.
Social sector and leisure hospitality: the hall mark of Asian countries has been hit hard while retail industry and tourism both domestic and international has also suffered immensely. If the disease persisted for longer time as is expected, the crisis may accelerate trends toward self-sufficiency and away from free trade. Pakistan has stopped importing masks and ventilator and have started local manufacturing which are now being exporting. Nevertheless, the economic ramifications of the crisis are significant in Pakistan. But the fear of the fears was the fear of death. A viral WhatsApp message claiming that French Nobel laureate Luc Montagnier has said “all those who have been vaccinated for Covid-19 will die within two years” (link 4) OMG. This is fear of death. What could be more horrific than this when all the vaccinated people started thinking that their days are numbered? From now onward, they would be like living dead. Was the statement rubbish like all the fake news are? No. It was partly true but most of the people didn’t realized. (details will be some time later in new blog “The vaccine politics”). Till then, it will be business as usual.
Stay blessed dear readers. Enjoy reading and get to know why people are afraid of Corona?
“We only know what we know when we need to know it.”
Please do comment as it gives me an idea of new blog. See you next week. Bye.
Further reading
Link-1. Sylvia Munoz-Price and coworkers from Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine, Medical College of Wisconsin, reported on September 25, 2020, in JAMA Network’s Open Original Investigation regarding “Racial Disparities: Incidence and Outcomes Among Patients With COVID-19”.
Link-2. https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2020/t0804-acute-flaccid-myelitis-outbreak.html
Link-3. The global Economy: on track for strong but uneven growth as COVID-19 still weighs. The world Bank, Feature story June 8th, 2021
Link-4. India Today’s AFWA probes the truth. Fact Check Bureau, New Delhi, May 26, 2021.
