COVID-19: what many ignore
Since the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020, SARS-CoV-2 has become one of the main topics of everyday life.
But little is said about the collateral damage of COVID-19, those aspects that have been ignored.
Many people are completely unaware of the effects of confinement, the use of masks and, above all, changes in life. Also, this has become a new normal that has changed the way many people work and relate to others.
What are the main collateral damage of COVID-19?
To talk about this virus is to consider hundreds of thousands of studies, tests and analyzes of symptoms and signs that have been done over the years. Information that everyone handles and that is not relevant to touch to describe the effects that are implicit in everything that the pandemic hides.
We can start by talking a little about the effects on the health of those who suffered from this disease and who managed to survive. One of the most obvious is respiratory distress, associated with damage to the bronchi and the functional tissue of the lungs.
From another point of view, some of the most common symptoms, such as loss of smell or taste; they have accompanied those affected for up to 6 months.
In turn, pathologies such as high blood pressure or diabetes were described as a result of the treatments or the effects of the virus itself. These are only the aspects concerning the health of those who suffered from it, but there is a lot to cut for those who did not.
A health system without eyes for other pathologies?
We give way to one of the collateral damage of COVID-19 that has left more undiagnosed and untreated diseases. In essence, health systems globally directed their resources to patients affected by the pandemic.
At the same time, they cleaned hospitals and care centers of those patients in the process of treatment and diagnosis. Cancer, for example, is a pathology that requires early detection to improve the prognosis, but many people suffer from it in silence.
In the same way, renal and coronary pathologies, surgical resolution and many others, have been overshadowed by this virus. Simple tests such as a blood count or early detection tests for blood in the stool have been left aside.
On the other hand, those who have symptoms other than those of COVID are, in a way, ignored. In the long run, their appointments are postponed to attend to those who do have them.
Fortunately, with mass vaccination and decentralization, it has been possible to open the doors to other pathologies, progressively reversing the harmful effects already mentioned.
What about mental health?
Mental health is one of the collateral damages of COVID-19 that few foresaw and that caused the most problems in these couple of years.
Affectation of mentality in adolescents and adults
First, let's talk about substance use. In particular, the rate of alcohol and cigarette spending grew dramatically, along with its associated consequences.
Due to the stress generated by this situation, access to psychoactive drugs was also increased as a method for controlling anxiety. Therefore, the scenario results in a society with substance intake problems that may affect them in the future.
psychological problems in infants
Regarding the little ones, the children who were born and grew up during the pandemic have developed without social contact. This has turned them into people with a certain reluctance towards relationships and into beings dependent on electronic devices for their communication.
Another problem is that parents have become the center of their universe and emotional dependency has raised their rates of occurrence.
For its part, another psychological pathology is depression due to the difficulty that has arisen for families to stay together. Over time, the rates of this disease, associated with anxiety and lack of contact with other people, rose.
What has been the environmental impact?
Many were the media that made great predictions about how beneficial confinement was being for the environment.
The reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and the images of wild animals approaching cities were very captivating. But nothing was further from reality.
The statistics of the year 2019 were some of the alarming regarding global warming and its effects. The pandemic just gave a little time to analyze this and create appropriate measures.
Since then, the effects of humanity against the planet have not drastically improved. When the confinement completely ceased, the aspects that had been "reverted" returned to what they were.
The collateral damage of COVID-19 becomes present when studying the massive waste of plastic. Masks, face shields, gloves and many more elements have ended up abruptly altering the ecosystem.
Thus, those objects that have worked to protect humanity have been catechized as threats to other species.
Some benefits of the pandemic
We cannot close this post on the collateral damage of COVID-19 without mentioning some benefits that have been brought about by it.
We can start with speeding up immunization studies, like developing new vaccines in record time.
In addition, many techniques and treatments were renewed thanks to the fact that the health system faced something unprecedented.
For their part, the organizations responsible for reversing the environmental impact had enough time to develop new strategies. Currently, plans have been designed to help the environment.
Finally, a virus that has appeared to completely change the way we see the world. As such, society, and our ecosystem, may not be so bad.
Humanity perhaps needed an opportunity to analyze its functioning and plan actions that could improve it. So, in your opinion, everything regarding COVID-19 has been bad?