7 research outputs found
âI feel like death on legsâ: COVID-19 isolation and mental health
This study investigates the personal and collective responses to COVID-19, as it is described in British personalstories and newspaper reports from Britain and Sri Lanka and examines the social and economic impact of thepandemic on different societies. Although some studies have been done on the impact of COVID-19, none of thesestudies have focused specifically on the impact the coronavirus has had on different societies because of the globallockdown and restrictions on peopleâs movements. This study attempts to address this gap in the literature byfocusing on how the language used in a corpus of personal stories and newspaper reports collected over a span ofone month, reveal the impact of COVID-19 on two societies by investigating how self-isolation and lockdown isleading to mental health breakdown in individuals and affecting wider social and economic collapse. The data wasanalysed using corpus linguistics methodology such as keyword analysis using AntConc (Anthony, 2019) andLinguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) (Pennebaker Conglomerates, 2015). Thefindings from LIWC showsthat the enforced self-isolation is leading to mental health breakdown. The analysis of the news reports show thatBritainâs priorities are centred on the economy whereas Sri Lankan newspapers focus on educating people aboutthe severity of COVID-19.1. IntroductionThe coronavirus pandemic has been likened to a war situation andmetaphors such asâbattleâ,âfightâ,âcombatâ,âattackâ,âdefendâ,âbeatâetc.,have been used by World leaders to describe the response to thepandemic (Maxwell et al., 2020).Magnus (25th February 2020)notesone such metaphor that gained traction at the start of the pandemic:âPresident Xi Jinping has vowed to wage aâpeopleâs warâagainst theCOVID-19 epidemic.âThe treatment of the pandemic as a war is also seenin the following headline by Britainâs Sun newspaper (Clark, March 15,2020) where the Prime Minister is saidâto declare warâand his actionplan is referred to as aâbattle planâ:âArmy on standby as Boris declareswar on coronavirus with battle plan to kill the deadly virusâ. These usesof war metaphors suggest the scale of the pandemic globally and theeffect that it is having on the population as a whole. On 13th March,2020, the Prime Minister of Britain stated on national TV thatâWeâregoing to lose many more loved onesâ(Binns, 13th March, 2020). Thescale of the spread has brought the issue of mental health well-being tothe forefront. The Guidance from the UK government statesâthe coro-navirus (COVID19) outbreak is going to have an impact on everyoneâsdaily lives, as the government and the NHS take necessary steps tomanage the outbreak, reduce transmission and treat those who needmedical attentionâ. The Public Health England website advices people tolook after their well-being byâconnecting with othersâ,âhelping andsupporting othersâ,âby talking about worriesâ,âlooking after oneâsphysical well-beingâ,âtrying to manage difficult feelingsâ,âmanagingmedia and information intakeâ,âsticking to a regular routine and sleeppatternâ, etc (Gov, 2020). The awareness of the pressure that the lock-down is placing on peopleâs mental health is increasing and this is seen bythe support for the government campaign by the Duke and Duchess ofCambridge (BBC News, 29th March, 2020), who remarked:âThe last fewweeks have been anxious and unsettling for everyone. We have to taketime to support each other andfind ways to look after our mental health.By pulling together and taking simple steps each day, we can all be betterprepared for the times ahead" (Table 5 and 6).As the COVID-19 pandemic has been branded asâthe worst healthcrisis in a generationâ(Binns, March 13th, 2020), the problem of peopleâsmental well-being is an important issue to address.Rimïżœe et al. (1991)state that during traumatic situations such as natural disasters and pan-demics, people process the trauma of the situation by coming togetherand that newspapers mirror this collective script of how the trauma isbeing processed by society. This is confirmed byGortner and Pennebaker(2003, p. 583), who noted that newspapers mirror theâpsychologicaldynamics of societyâ. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to investi-gate the social impact the novel coronavirus is having on two societies byexamining a selected corpus of news reports and personal stories