The world Economic Forum published an article with charts showing the size of the Coronavirus lockdowns worldwide. About 2.6. billion people around the world are in lockdown, this makes it the biggest psychological experiment. Burnouts and stress-related absenteeism will be the secondary epidemic as a result of this COVID-19 crisis. This article about 2.6. billion people around the world are in lockdown also refers to a review published in The Lancet about a review of 24 studies documenting the psychological impact of quarantine. In short, and perhaps unsurprisingly, people who are quarantined are very likely to develop a wide range of symptoms of psychological stress and disorder, including low mood, insomnia, stress, anxiety, anger, irritability, emotional exhaustion, depression and post-traumatic stress symptoms. Low mood and irritability specifically stand out as being very common, the study notes.

In China, these expected mental health effects are already being reported in the first research papers about the lockdown.

Read the whole article on the website of the World Economic Forum.