Fear whipped up over Covid by the Government and the media has resulted in millions of Brits struggling to return to normal life, according to a report which will warn that people are locking themselves down from within. Set to be published next month, the report identifies “Covid Anxiety Syndrome” as a condition which burdens many with a fear of public places and a need to maintain compulsive hygiene habits. Lucy Johnston in the Sunday Express has more.
Up to one in five is believed to have developed a “compulsive and disproportionate” fear of Covid, which would likely stay in place even if the virus disappeared completely. Warnings about the dangers of Covid have heightened the problem, and mixed messages about the level of danger have made it worse, said Marcantonio Spada, a Professor of Addictive Behaviours and Mental Health at London’s South Bank University, who co-authored the report.
He said: “Our research suggests a number of people may not be able to return to normality even if the pandemic disappeared altogether. Worrying, checking others for symptoms, and avoidance have, over the months, gradually cemented a state of fear about the virus. Life has become restricted, and many people are experiencing a ‘psychological lockdown’ even if we are coming out of the physical one.”
The recently identified condition – Covid Anxiety Syndrome – is characterised by fear of public places, compulsive hygiene habits, worrying about the virus and frequent symptom checking.
The findings from the study, which was undertaken in March and April 2021, showed 46% of people feared returning to public transport, 44% feared touching things, while 35% were checking their family members and loved ones for signs of Covid on a regular basis.
Professor Spada and co-author Ana Nikčević, Professor of Psychology at Kingston University, compared these recent findings to those they had collected in May 2020. They found the patterns to be broadly unchanged.
Overall one in five was “struggling with marked levels of maladaptive behaviour” related to the syndrome. Vaccination status – with around 35% of respondents being vaccinated – and a previous diagnosis of mental health condition did not appear to play a role in the severity of the syndrome which affects people from all professions and educational backgrounds.
Those affected are likely to represent the tip of an iceberg with many others suffering less severe anxiety related to fear of the virus making them feel threatened or afraid of returning to normal.
Professor Spada and his colleague are analysing a sample of 6,000 adults across China, Europe and the U.S. in collaboration with researchers from Imperial College to assess the global prevalence and impact of the syndrome. Results will be published by the summer, but preliminary indications show the syndrome is present across all countries surveyed to varying degrees.
Professor Spada said: “Our research suggests many people may struggle or may not return to normal even if the pandemic disappeared altogether.
“Avoidance locks you into fear. People are now locked down within despite the fall in infection rates and vaccine rollout. It appears that the syndrome affects people from all professions and educational levels.”
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: New polling from Ipsos MORI suggests it may be more than 20% of the population that’s suffering from Covid Anxiety Syndrome. It shows that 28% of British adults aren’t looking forward to “Greeting people with handshake/hug/kiss”, 27% aren’t looking forward to “going to large public gatherings such as sport of music events” and 24% aren’t looking forward to “Going to parties (such as weddings or birthday parties)”.
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I’ve developed ‘Anti-Covidian Anxiety Syndrome’. It has many similar symptoms but is grounded in a rejection of a mythos, not its affirmation.
With me it’s Covid Anger Syndrome. It comes on whenever I see people wearing face masks in public. As you say, this has similar symptoms, notably a dislike of public places and avoidance of interacting with people, although these are brought on by anger rather than fear.
Yes, I get that too. Anxiety and fear are not linked in this case however, except in so far as the consequences of all this terrify me.
I’m really struggling with Covid Anger Syndrome. I walk back from my allotment some days and idiots are walking down quiet residential streets wearing masks. I just had a family walk past me and cower into the hedge because I wasn’t wearing a mask. Recently, I haven’t been able to stop myself from making snide remarks or laughing after this type of lunatic goes past me. I feel like I’m exercising restraint by not shouting at them to their faces. I walk on the quietest roads I can find, and I still keep seeing these idiots. At least some of them have the sense to cross the road to keep their distance from sane people.
So they brought in masks in summer they said to reassure the vulnerable it was OK to shop. Now, we need to pander to their inability to move on.
I have heard it said that we are either Roundheads or Cavaliers.
Now we are either sheep or sceptics.
Roundheads or Cavaliers used to describe circumcised and uncircumcised! 🙂
It’s no skin off my nose.
No foreskin, you mean?
LIKE IT!!
That will be hard to unpick.
Even if they put as much effort and advertising in as they did to scare people, it will not work, We are programmed to focus on the negative.
I don’t think it needs a bunch of professors and other boffins to determine that large sections of the population have been turned into gibbering, cowering Covid wrecks. The incessant terrifying and dishonest advertising, both print and broadcast, is bound to keep people in that state, and I might almost suppose that it’s designed to. The “theatre” of the Johnson slave wear masks and the antisocial distancing serve as the continuing physical manifestations of the terror that has been generated.
The wheedling tones of the current crop of radio vaccination ads are about as creepy as can be, and are more like the sort of subliminal voices-off that one might have heard in the Lubianka, persuading the prisoner to make a confession, or to commit suicide.
Perhaps we need some encouraging pop songs from, say, Elton John and others, along the lines of “It’s a Wonderful World” or “Things can only get better”. That, for me at least, would trigger a descent into madness, but might work for others.
Right Said Fred would be a better place to start as they’ve never bought into the propaganda.
Among the few
Also Van Morrison and Ian Brown
A f*** **f huge open air multi day concert (artists get their usual fee, but attendees go free, subsidised by the taxpayer).
Imagine the psychological benefits of interacting with unafraid, happy people by the tens of thousands?
Each day, I’ve read that UK’s national debt grows by £1 billion, or some horrifying number. Bringing forward by one day the time we can begin to put this behind us is worth so much, that subsidised, outdoor, group activity may be an extremely good contribution to the old normal.
God, how I miss it.
Agree.
Excellent suggestion.
Very true, but wouldn’t the potential audience be more of the sort that needs to be lulled and wooed from its present abject state, rather than roused?
I’m too happy for my mask, too happy for my mask – too happeeeeee!!!!
I agree about the radio stuff – they’re still heavily pushing the asymptomatic crap in their ads. Get tested today or you might kill granny because 30% of people don’t have symptoms.
With that sort of crap on constant media rotation how can they not expect a significant proportion of the population to be gibbering wrecks?
I wrote to the ASA about the ads and said the asymptomatic ads were absolute lies. Guess what? They have ignored me. What a surprise.
I did the same. Total silence.
Which means they know they’re peddling untruths.
Agree 100% – I don’t have a TV and don’t listen to BBC radio apart from R4 Extra and R3 but even I have noticed the fear-mongering and have had my ‘anxious’ moments. In between shouting at the R3 news bulletins. I’m also quite anxious about what’s happening to the country of course.
I no longer listen because I feel it’s injurious to my mental health. How are they not injuncted to cease & desist?
It’s so far from the truth that I have no doubt in my mind that it’s knowingly being used to terrify people.
“Things can only get better”, no, that will forever be associated with Tony Blair’s 1997 election campaign.
I think some unconscious irony crept in there.
“The wheedling tones of the current crop of radio vaccination ads are about as creepy as can be”
I find shouting “f *** off!” at the radio whenever I hear one of those ads to be therapeutic, or switching it off altogether so I don’t have to hear it.
Like the ad that just started up, with that warm, soothing voice saying “650 people….”
I switched the radio off so I don’t have to be subjected to the propaganda.
Yet another friend has been confined to history today (not my choice, it was their decision) because of my decision to not have the jab.
Hi richteabiscuit,
The ‘thumbs down’ is from me and is directed at your friend and not at you!
Get him/her/them on here and we’ll soon change their mind.
😉
What was their rationale for that? If they’ve been vaccinated, what are they still afraid of? Being infected? Does that mean they don’t believe the vaccine works? And if they don’t believe the vaccine works, like other vaccines do, why did they have it?
They were never really a friend, but you simply didn’t know it.
I can soon see the same happening to me, but in reverse, the vaccinated shunning and de-friending me because I haven’t had the jab and cannot lie and say I have had it. The consolation I have is that I am so glad I am on this site, and aware of the fact that for once I am on the right side of the argument and actively protecting myself and my health, while I watch from the sidelines to see what happens to all those who couldn’t get to that vaccination centre quick enough. I don’t think it is going to be pretty.
Hail to our glorious leader and his Fascist pseudo-experts. Their cretinous cruelty has had no effect whatsoever on the virus, but they have triumphantly destroyed the brains of 20% of the populatiin. Supposing that 20% had any brains to start with.
Imagine, though, the advantage to the rest of us: how much more room everywhere, while the de-brained stay permanently under the bed, pushing sticks up their noses, knickering their faces, and sluicing themselves with gunk.
In addition to this I have friends who have developed social anxiety. After 14 months not seeing another human being it’s a challenge for them to socialise.
The biggest problem for me in socialising now is that I know everyone’s politics. I used to prefer thinking the person I was interacting with had a functioning brain, was capable of rational thought and might genuinely teach me something. These days I dread opening social media for fear of finding another one lost to the this months trendy circle around my profile brigade.
That’s it, I can’t believe I’m surrounded by so many idiots!
And when they do emerge they will keel over from the first little cold bug that comes along to overwhelm their compromised immune systems.
And they’ll be utterly convinced they’re about to die of it. (That little cold bug).
Why are Imperial College involved in this research given that they are demonstrably up to their necks in the propoganda in the first place? And I don’t believe they are trying to cover their backs.
Given our current Orwellian state why is such so called research being conducted? Imperial College is owned by Lord Bill of the Gates of Hell so he must have knowledge of this.
Perhaps having confirmed the obvious to their paymasters Bill and the gang are now quite happy to let whole populations know how determinedly evil they an be. A way of gloating and advertising their success. All via the vehicle of “research.”
Bastards.
Totally agree. But with respect you missed out the word ‘Total’ before Bastards. Imperial College should be quarantined in perpetuity and never allowed to do any more quasi-research or make any more public statements. The pain and damage caused by incumbents of this apology for a seat of high learning is incalculable.
Re: Gates, there has been a sea-change in coverage the last few weeks. The impending divorce was announced within hours that Attorney Matthew Deperno alleged a MS SQL server backdoor was found on Dominion election voting machines.
Within days, Gates had gone from, got on Epstein’s plane once totally by accident he had no idea what it was….to – Gates & Epstein were extremely close to the point Epstein gave Gates marital advice several times in NYC over the years… ‘oh & something else we accidentally forgot to mention a while back:’ Seattle Police detained a pedo a year or so ago, literally at Gates’ residence!… Billy G’s stock is falling fast.
Couldn’t happen to a more deserving chap.
And also reinforces the point that these very rich people tend to know one another. There doesn’t have to be a conspiracy, except one of mutual silence over what they get up to that the rest of us find repugnant.
So good to hear. People dislike sexual predators but they reserve Special ire for sexual predators of children. Quite right too.
Don’t forget it’s China’s preferred academic institute in the UK. Visited by Xi himself.
An epidemic of OCD. Who’d have thunk it?
“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
I’m a Nurse and my anger towards the Nursing and Medical profession is marked.With little or no discussion of the fabled asymptomatic transmission ie bullshit or warnings of Vaccine injuries like Death! I am not surprised given the nature and quality of those that lurk within the profession . I refuse testing at work,masks and the jab.Fuck them at the moment they can’t do nothing about it.I am strident and forthright in my views and they have no rebuttal.I’m officially over with the whole sham.
Go it, dear Teddy Edward!
Thanks Annie it’s a battle worth fighting ps you can call me Mike!
Whatever you like, Mike!
As a nurse how do you get away with not wearing a mask at work? I can’t even get into the gym without being forced to wear one.
Be exempt, simple. Card carry if concerned.
Tried that, doesn’t work. Bannatyne’s gyms are adamant that the don’t recognise exemptions. I’ve discussed this in the forums section on LDS and it is clear this comes from the top (i.e. Douglas Bannatyne) and it is corporate policy.
He’s a prick I made eye contact with him a few years back in Yarm with his child bride.He smirked at me ridiculous man hair system and skinny jeans nice.
Is he Duncan’s brother?
Oops, haha, yes,him 🙂
They can’t not accept exemptions unless they want to end up in court. If you’re bored sue them just needs one person to make an example.
I know. Trouble is I’m not bored/furloughed/unemployed 🙁
Duncan?
Vote with your feet
Find another gym that doesn’t require masks.
Wearing a mask while trying to do exercise is very unhealthy.
I refuse that’s it apart from when it is clinically appropriate.I informed my Manager the whole deal is Horseshit.I was threatened
with the Healthboard as yet nothing.Mission creep is setting in.
I carry a lanyard (personal choice) but you’d be surprised by how little it is required. If someone asks for the grounds on which you are exempt, particularly if they persist, ask if they are familiar with the equality act 2010, & that they have just violated it. 🙂
I was challenged in hospital and more than once re masks. On the first two occasions I just bluntly stated “I don’t wear masks.” It didn’t go down well but I don’t care.
Third challenge and I told the nurse I was exempt – which I am BTW – he wanted to know on what grounds, the cheeky bastard. I told him the information was none of his business and was confidential.
Some NHS think they are still flying with angels and don’t realise the rosy hued glasses have gone. They are there to do a job and need to treat their paymasters with more respect.
Bannatyne’s gyms (Douglas Bannatyne himself to be precise, it’s on record) do not recognise exemptions
Do they recognize assistance dogs or wheelchairs?
I enjoy pointing out to those who ask why no lanyard, that I refuse to be ‘labelled disabled’ and that the other place that used to require this type of labelling of the disabled was in fact Nazi Germany. Confused looks are the satisfying but sad result more often than not.
Good on you! I’ve really learned to stand my ground, and make my decisions definite with no room for them to try manoeuvre! Btw, I loved Teddy Edward as a kid. Pretty cool theme tune too, if I remember rightly!
I loved that Bear also.I made a stand they can sack me but I’m not for turning! Once you show defiance the facade of control recedes.Exit stage left chased by a Teddy Bear no comment no coherent retorts to common sense and based science.
My friend from Swansea visited me yesterday and refused to hug although fully vaxxed she announced.She’s on my shit list
That’s the spirit!
Good to hear this. I don’t know of any nurse I previously worked with in the NHS who hasn’t happily rolled up their sleeve and then triumphantly virtue signalled on facebook.
I was an NHS Nurse for 27 years and 7 years in the Private sector.It’s drek healthcare full of idiots and psychopaths.I beat my own drum those complicit Nurses are a disgrace they hate patients and the public that’s clear.I speak as a survivor of 4 NMC referrals by vicious,malicious staff.Dr’s and Nurses are a dangerous breed.
Please tell adherents that literally everything they’ve been told is lies. No exceptions. Either artful exaggeration or complete fabrication.
good for you – wish a certain friend of mine had been as sceptical – rolled up sleeve for the jabs quick as you like and treated the whole thing like a joke and also doesn’t seem to “get” position I, unjabbed, am in when vaxx passports come in
But isn’t that exactly what they want??? A fearful and compliant population, absolutely ready now to exchange their liberty for “safety” which, as we all know, means total control by the state through global governance. This was their intention. The disgusting so-called human beings that have perpetrated this crime on the rest of humanity deserve to be hanged.
Last week I saw the father of a young child (about 2 or 3 years old) put a mask on the child before going into a shop. I wonder how many neurotic children are now out there and will they turn into neurotic adults?
I had a moment communicating with a baby in a buggy in a shop whilst waiting my turn to be served, baby was staring at me so I smiled and baby smiled back so I waved and baby waved back…I was the only person maskless.
Just back from the restaurant and a family of five, including three children, all under ten, wearing masks.
Imbeciles.
I saw a mother with four children, all under 11, one in a pushchair, all with masks on outside in a play area. Ironically, mum was barefaced. Go figure!
At the soft play session I was at yesterday the random kids came to play with me and my kids rather than their masked parents. Seriously “can I play with you?” I’m a 44yo man!
I hope you played with the poor kids, they need to learn what a human being is like.
It really is very hard to have any sympathy for these people.
The reason sceptics don’t suffer from this “maladaptive behaviour” is that they’ve had the basic intelligence and enquiring nature to see this whole thing for the b***sh*t it is from DAY ONE.
The reason we’re still in this mess is down to the craven attitude of so many members of the public.
I’ve realised about this story for months now, the moronic nob’ed lemmings would much rather stay under the bed to await death rather than joining the living so just sod’em.
New campaign needed .
“No mask, no hand sanatiser, no 1m plus”
Small print -please wash hands before helping yourself to the complimentary bar peanuts.
Signs all over Scotland saying “Level 2, Plan Ahead, Save Lives” – tax money at work. Someone actually got paid to come up with such useless, vague tripe. I mean, plan ahead? Seriously? Bugger off Sturgeon, you useless cow.
Anybody doing a study on the anxiety/anger caused to those who have recognised this as a shit show from the beginning and are fearful/angry about what the future holds because they no longer have any trust in Government, the judiciary, healthcare services and the msm to tell anything near the truth or to act in their best interests?
Masks were introduced to encourage the afraid to overcome their fears, it hasnt, ditch the masks.
“Masks were introduced to encourage the afraid to overcome their fears”
That was the excuse. I’m not convinced it was the real reason.
me either
This news doesn’t surprise me in the least – this has been in the pipeline for a very long time now and is the result of many years of mollycoddling that has been fueling mental illness to the point where western society has become less resilient and incredibly sensitive – unable to handle even the mildest shocks, the simplest challenges or the slightest disorder in their lives and prefering to ‘keep safe’ and never take risks – avoiding all situations that expose people to unpleasant but normal ordinary life events (pandemics are nothing new and have always been with us). Sadly many people have been immunised from what were the normal stresses in everyday life which has made them less resilient to the bigger events that come along – safetyism has removed all risks in life and we see this in numerous policies to protect people who are ‘fragile’ or who are ‘triggered’ by hurty words and/or ‘microaggressions’. People now overreact to things that generations in the past would have brushed off quite easily and simply got on with their lives again. We have created a neurotic society with higher rates of anxiety disorders than any generation before – we… Read more »
Not Covid anxiety, Pyongyang propaganda anxiety.
The constant bombardment of absurdities cannot have had no impact, some people believe it and, if they believe it, they will be anxious.
So basically people who don’t want to be locked down needn’t be because those that are concerned wilfully lock themselves away. This was seen across forums such as mumsnet from early last year (January/February)
Fear is the Mind Killer
Well done the Nudge Units and Behavioral Scientists may you rot in hell
Can anyone think of a bigger national security risk than injecting the entire Armed Forces with experimental Coronavirus vaccines which eminent, top dollar scientists like Professor Sucharit Bhakdi have given such sombre warnings about? Vaccines with a 100% track record of failure in animal trials due to enhancement of disease ie they are known to always cause severe illness and death in the vaccinated and never even got through animal trials because of this, despite decades of attempts. All for a 0.15% IFR virus which the average member of the Forces would likely shake off like a Kodiak Bear would shake off a butterfly. Ummm……ummmmm……this is fucking crazy! Look at this article. Is the UK being sabotaged here? And the US maybe too? Have Russia and China taken such risks with their entire miltaries for the common cold too? I suspect not. Dolores Cahill has given anyone who takes the mRNA shot 10 years to live max and a nasty run of illness. Others have issued equally dire warnings. I read that Nobel Prize winner Luc Montagnier has joined the list of scientists saying this kind of thing. I can’t claim to have any expertise in basic life strategy, let… Read more »
I attempted to watch that video on my phone. The interviewers voice was clear as day, but the professor’s responses were almost completely muffled /inaudible / replaced with quiet static. Is this a NEW form of censorship do we think?
I have managed to watch this video with no problems on other platforms so it’s not the video itself, just YouTube’s rendering of it.
Yes, I found the same. I think it is a form of censorship.
I was advised here previously that using headphones solves that, why for that one particular clip who knows ?
Similar to the coercive attempts by NHS England, who called for line managers to have one-to-one conversations by 12 / 3 / 21 with staff who refused the covid vaccine, to discuss its ‘powerful protective effects’.
‘Powerful, protective effects’ – wonder if they were threatened, alongside loss of employment, with a visit from the local voodoo doctor, their front door smeared with blood and copious headless chickens left on their doorsteps if they didn’t comply?
https://www.hsj.co.uk/workforce/-staff-who-refuse-covid-vaccine-face-one-to-one-with-managers/7029626.article
They’ve already tried emasculating the Armed Forces with critical race theory and diversity. This is another method to undermine the West, so it can no longer defend itself.
One of the biggest disappointments for me is that a lot of my friends won’t even discuss the lies we’ve been fed with me anymore. It’s a bit like I’ve been cancelled with a lot of people. Even though they probably know that we’ve been lied to and bullied by the government they just seem happy to go along with it. Even to the point where my gf asked me to put my mask on in Starbucks because I was the only person not wearing one and she felt uncomfortable! Jesus wept!!
Do you have a nappy to put in! If so, burn it, then you won’t be tempted!
I felt exactly like you but I went to a “stand in the park meeting” a few weeks ago. It was wonderful, I now have a completely new set of friends, we meet up frequently and I feel energised from one meeting to the other. The owner of the hostelry is amenable too. I can fully recommend it.
Stand in the park is excellent 10 till 11ish Sunday mornings, in a park near you, We get about 30 people and growing…
i went for the first time yesterday, it was great, hugging complete strangers, having a merry time, lots of chat. What is wrong with people that they are terrified at the thought of just being human? How can they have let this happen to them?
I feel that way too – cancelled – I think people can’t bear to think they have been had, to think they have fallen for this with dire consequences for themselves in the form of the jab they have submitted to.
I’m avoiding public places because they are full of reminders of how far our society has fallen. Also it’s bad for my blood pressure.
Sometimes when I go to our local outdoor farmers market ( the only place I go to buy food now ) and see all the people wearing their face muzzles OUTDOORS it makes my p+ss boil! I actually had a panic attack from this a few weeks back – it literally felt like I was living in a Zombie Apocalypse ( I was the only non muzzleoid ) – and I rapidly retreated home!
I know what you mean. I couldn’t get over how many people were wearing masks outside at a small Norwich retail park recently. I won’t wear a mask inside a store, let alone outside.
yes I walked past a school playground on my walk this morning and was horrified to see teenage girls playing what looked to be “catch” but all wearing masks. Outside.
This IPSOS Mori list is terrifying. Just realizing what people have been deprived from for so long.
IPSOS Mori haven’t been deprived financially, though! Just another target for their technique.
I suggest it’s not fear of the lurgy, it’s just that over the past 15months+ we’ve all been told we could get in some serious trouble with the law if we do many of the things on the list below (nothing to do with spreading the virus). To now say it’s ok to do those things causes cognitive dissonance – and when in doubt the brain wants to carry on doing the same thing. The best thing we can do for these poor deluded and befuddled folk is to show them what they are missing and that they’ll be perfectly ok. The herds clearly need their shepherds, and better ones that the government at that.
The ‘waste not want not’ mentality engendered during WW2 lasted well into the 1970s but that was a good thing considering that what came next was the throwaway consumer society that still gets worse year on year.
“waste not want not’ mentality engendered during WW2”
At least that kind sense. The current madness does not.
Only one in five really? Here in Canada, I would guess it would be more like 4 out of 5.
What about shake hands show your face welcome into my space! Or let’s all join hands with a smiling face and oh bugger can’t think of another preschool sounding rhythm for space!!
what about hands [ie shake hands] face [ie no mask – show your face] no space
Hang on a second, you deliberately scare the country shitless relentlessly for over a year and are then surprised when the already whimpish have become the greatest gibbering wrecks of all time? Oh quel surprise. I’d laugh if it wasn’t so tragic.
Let’s the rest of us get out and party.