Since it was initially detected in Wuhan City, Hubei, China, a novel coronavirus, recently named Covid-19, has become a global public health challenge. Over 80,000 cases have been identified around the world, including about 3,000 deaths.
Most of us have in our minds a model of how to respond to large-scale health threats like Covid-19. We think of science. We think of quarantines and sanitary masks, and the race to develop a vaccine. These are important steps in addressing Covid-19, as are standard flu-season best practices of handwashing, covering one’s mouth when one sneezes or coughs, and contacting a health care professional in the event of sickness.
But there is another element to addressing Covid-19, one we perhaps do not think much about: love. To be clear: I do not mean love in a sentimental sense. I am not suggesting we can simply love each other and the disease will go away. Covid-19 is a serious, sometimes deadly disease, and will not be wished away by warm feelings. I mean love as an organizing principle for our collective response to disease and for building a healthier world, one where threats like Covid-19 no longer occur.
Let me explain.
Diseases threaten us in many ways, and not just at the level of physical health. They also threaten mental health—of individuals and of whole societies—by spreading the contagion of fear, suspicion, and hate. We have begun to see this with Covid-19. The spread of the disease has been accompanied, in some areas, by bigotry, xenophobia, and a desire to build walls. Because Covid-19 was first detected in China, anti-Chinese sentiment has begun to shape the discourse about the disease. Because Covid-19 is communicable, countries have started to limit travel, and individuals have begun to fear the consequences of their daily interactions with one another. This is, to some extent, practical when tackling health challenges of this nature. Some social isolation, both large- and small-scale, is necessary for keeping populations safe. Yet this can easily tip beyond what is necessary into division motivated more by fear and alarm than sensible precaution. Such overreaction is one of the worst steps we can take, at a time when health depends on our ability to work together, as a global community, to stop the spread of disease.
Photo by Anna Shvets from Pexels.
Read the full piece at Psychology Today.