By: Janna Caguiat / The Dominican Gazette

Image from BBC News https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-55299912
Pandemic is much more than a medical emergency. It affects people especially students and society, causing chaos, anxiety, stress, stigma, and xenophobia. Individual conduct as a unit of society or a community has a significant impact on the dynamics of a pandemic, including the intensity, flow, and after-effects. The rapid human-to-human transmission of SARSCoV2 necessitated the imposition of regional lockdowns to prevent the disease from spreading further. Isolation, social alienation, and the shutdown of educational institutions, employment, and entertainment venues forced people to stay at home to break the transmission cycle. The restrictive measures, on the other hand, have harmed people's social and mental health.
As even more people are forced to stay at home in self-isolation to prevent the infection from spreading further at a societal level, governments must take the required steps to give mental health care as recommended by specialists and students have to learn from home. Self-isolation and quarantine are likely to have a bad impact on one's mental health. Separation from loved ones, loss of independence, boredom, and uncertainty, according to an analysis published in The Lancet, can lead to a decline in an individual's mental health.
Individual and societal-level measures are required to overcome this. Both children and adults are experiencing a range of emotions as a result of the current world scenario. They may be placed in a setting or atmosphere that is unfamiliar to them and could be harmful to their health. Children who are at home, away from school, friends, and colleagues, may have many questions regarding the outbreak, and they turn to their parents or caregivers for answers. Children and parents do not all react to stress in the same way. Anxiety, distress, social isolation, and an abusive environment can all affect a child's mental health in the short or long term.
Concentration and attention problems are two prevalent alterations in some children’s behavior. Maybe some parents must remain calm, deal with the issue wisely, and answer all of the child's inquiries to the best of their abilities to assist offset negative behaviors. Parents should talk to their children about the COVID19 outbreak and offer some good facts, numbers, and information to them. Parents can reassure their children that they are safe at home and encourage them to participate in healthy activities such as indoor sports and mental and physical exercises. Parents can also create a home timetable to assist their children in staying on track with their education. Physical separation caused by the COVID19 outbreak can have a significant negative impact on the mental health of the elderly and disabled. Physical seclusion among family members might jeopardize the mental health of the elderly and disabled. It can give them anxiety, distress, and perhaps put them in a horrific scenario. Elderly individuals rely on their children for their everyday needs, and isolation can be detrimental to a family system.