UNITED Nations Secretary-General António Guterres was right when he recently said: "Even when the Covid-19 pandemic was brought under control, depression would continue to affect people and communities."
So when the Conditional Movement Control Order (CMCO) was enforced in Sabah, Kedah, Kuala Lumpur, Putrajaya and Selangor, it created more problems for the common people, especially the breadwinners.
The immediate adversity that the pandemic creates is mental health issues. The Health Ministry has seen an upsurge in anxiety, post-traumatic stress and obsessive-compulsive disorders, as well as effects of isolation.
The Centre, a think tank, in April said a study it conducted found that 45 per cent of 1,084 Malaysian respondents experienced varying levels of anxiety and depression during the MCO. Thirty-four per cent of the 4,142 calls received by The Befrienders between March 18 and May 16 were related to the Covid-19 outbreak.
Over a third of the calls were suicidal in nature. News reports showed that 78 suicide cases had been recorded since March 18.
There were 64 suicides in the same period last year. There were also spikes in calls to women's aid groups over domestic violence during the MCO.
Many are finding it hard to cope with the isolation and economic hardship related to the pandemic. Being in isolation breeds fear and helplessness, and this can lead to anxiety and depression.
While most of us are experiencing higher levels of emotional distress than normal, its severity may vary according to age, race, education level and location.
The pandemic has caused devastating decay to the mental health of millions of people and it is difficult to measure given the direct and indirect factors associated with it. In the United States, where the Covid-19 cases are the highest, researchers carrying out surveys on the national pandemic impact across a sample of 1,500 adults found that pandemic-related emotional distress decreased by age group.
People in the 18-to-34 age bracket reported the most pandemic-related distress, with respondents citing high stress at nearly double the rate of people over 50. Respondents in the 65+ age group reported the lowest distress scores. In terms of ethnicities, Hispanics/Latinos and blacks had the highest average Pandemic Distress Index Scores (PDIS), while the whites had the lowest average scores.
APDIS is calculated based on participants' responses, which are divided into low (bottom 25 per cent), moderate, and high (top 25 per cent) quartiles of pandemic distress. The survey also found that from a community perspective, people who lived in rural areas were less likely to experience high pandemic distress compared with those living in towns or cities.
It's ironic that rural areas in Malaysia are seeing spikes in the outbreak more pervasively. I'm sure pandemic distress in these areas is high.
Hence, it's time the Health Ministry, Finance Ministry and related agencies do a survey of a pandemic stress index to find out how extensively the pandemic has affected Malaysians' mental health.
The index will tell us what and where the resources of our medical services should go. We need a health advisory on how Malaysians can cope in this time of uncertainty. I believe healthy minds, in a broader perspective, will contribute much more to the country, if not to their employers and to themselves.
But the crux of the matter is, we need to take care of ourselves, our loved ones and the community.
We must continue to prioritise physical and mental health so that we can build immunity for what's to come.
C'est la vie.
The writer, a former NST journalist, is now a film scriptwriter whose penchant is finding new food haunts in the country