Let me start off saying that there is no official COVID Pandemic Syndrome in either the psychological or psychiatric literature that I and google are aware of.

There is a paper on “COVID Stress Syndrome” that I found while doing a google search after I was starting to upload this post to the Internet. The closely named paper that can be accessed HERE is a different conception than mine but of equal interest and equal importance as my comments.

The general approach I am taking is that the COVID pandemic has elicited a number of psychological reactions (different in inclusion, importance, and intensity for specific individuals) for most.

In other words, my approach is to point out that exposure to the pandemic over a period of a year or more has resulted in many people experiencing the psychological states, symptoms, and conditions shown in the mind map below. From my observation, many of us have and continue to experience these states probably because of extreme exposure over a long period of time to the conditions of the pandemic. As we know from decades of competent scientific research by tens of thousands of well-trained and smart mental health professionals on grief, anxiety, depression, anger and the other states in my diagram, these problems for most will not go away without some types of psychological intervention for most people. Depending upon the psychological problems an individual is experiencing, proven pharmaceutical-medical and/or behavioral-cognitive interventions are available they will need customized mental health services.

It would be very naive to assume that we need to vaccinate the entire world to finally control the spread of the novel coronavirus without also providing psychological-psychiatric services to those who do and will need them. If such services are not offered at minimal (or no) cost globally, hundreds of millions of people may suffer with depression and anxiety and alcoholism and drug abuse and domestic violence and deeply felt anger for the rest of their lives.

Let’s not forget about the COVID Pandemic Syndrome that is happening to most of us to varying degrees. If we don’t solve the psychological problems caused by the pandemic now, many will not fully recover. Mental health and medical interventions should be available to everyone living through the pandemic or its sequelae if we want the global population to recover and not expose the unborn babies and children of our future to these horrible psychological conditions.

Click on the diagram to expand it.

In a follow-up post I am going to provide links to a number of relevant and technically sound studies and speculations on the psychological consequences of the coronavirus.

We need a plan and resources, NOW.

Starting on June 1, US schools should be allocated money from the federal government to provide remedial in-class and online summer classes and counseling services at their school or online. The funds allocated should be for student educational services and not for general school overhead such as building improvement or teachers and resources that are not integrally to these special programs. Services should be provided for 24 months from the time that a school district starts special programs.

Our most important resource — our future generations — should receive full educations and not be penalized because a natural disaster occured during their school years.

Students from communities that have traditionally been underserved either intentionally or inadvertently should have priority to participate in the earliest programs. As possible the same programs should be rolled out to all public school districts.

Click the image to expand it.