opinion
pandemic
The corona fear in us: a plea against panic
In the corona pandemic, we are bombarded with a lot of negative things. Our author believes that it is best not to panic and get involved in it.
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Forecasts that come thick and fast. Reports of new corona mutants. The corona pandemic can be very depressing for us humans. It is important that we do not lose our heads and react in a panic to everything, believes our author.
The fact that the corona pandemic demands a lot from all of us need not go further here. We’ve been swimming on corona waves for a good two years now. The corona tickers bombard us every minute with numbers of infections, warnings from experts and statements from politics.
Some react to all of this with anger. You go “for a walk” and mess with the police. They don’t give a damn about the mask or vehemently refuse to be vaccinated. Many from this group step into things that are absolutely not beneficial – neither for fighting pandemics nor for democracy.
But even in the team caution is overshot. These people are the complete opposite of lateral thinkers: inside. They would have preferred to have tougher Corona measures the day before yesterday or condemn the “walks” of the Corona deniers: inside in the strongest possible way.
Take coronavirus seriously – but don’t panic
Some in this group have panic firmly under control. Such people avoid contact for fear of infection. They say they have barely left the house since the pandemic started. They are calling for a tough lockdown over the autumn and winter months. You see a virus hotspot in every stairwell, every elevator, every bus.
Of course, a lot is unsettling in this pandemic. Scientists’ predictions raise questions. However, some seem to see the prognoses for the development of infections, virus variants or hospitalizations as the harbingers of the apocalypse. Some overturn with gloomy and even gloomy predictions. Everything is getting worse and worse. You get into a vortex of bad news and bad news.
No panic!
No panic? Yes! Of course, in a pandemic there is a lot of bad news that weighs on or darkens our minds. We can’t change that. But we can change how we deal with it. We shouldn’t get into the bad. We shouldn’t spend all day looking for horror reports that feed our fear. It cannot be healthy to deal with negative things around the clock, to only suspect bad news everywhere and to gasp with every new Corona variant, keyword “Deltakron”. Therefore, when you find yourself in it, you should take a deep breath.
“Fear sharpens the senses. Fear paralyzes them”
Why? On the one hand, as stated, it is not good for our psyche. On the other hand, because the coronavirus will not go away. The coronavirus will (hopefully) become endemic sooner or later, as many experts agree on. So we have to learn to live with the virus. So should you isolate yourself at home for years or even the rest of your life and only talk to people about Zoom or Facetime? So should one go into hard lockdown every year for months?
Conversely, that does not mean that we should give a damn about all the Corona rules and that we should be able to hug and kiss in large numbers in narrow apartments at parties. We (unfortunately) have to adhere to the corona rules for a while, and even tighten them if necessary. We have to reduce contacts, wear a mask, take care of risk groups, test ourselves regularly and should also be vaccinated or boosted.
Yes, the virus can be bad. It can cause long covid, take us to the intensive care unit – or in the worst case even into the coffin. But does it help us if, driven by panic, we holed up at home and only met people with an FFP2 mask – if at all? Isn’t that harmful to us too?
“Take it seriously,” said former Chancellor Angela Merkel at the beginning of the pandemic. It should be so. We have to continue to take the virus seriously, know that the virus is not harmless, and have respect for Corona and Covid. But don’t lose your head so that we don’t act mindlessly. A quote from the American neurologist and psychiatrist Kurt Goldstein sums it up well: “Fear sharpens the senses. Fear paralyzes them.”