Vaccine leader signs deal for 1 billion Covid-19 doses a year
Germany's confirmed coronavirus cases rise by 945 to 161,703: RKI
Reuters: Health
The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany rose by 945 to 161,703, data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases showed on Saturday.
COVID-19: It’s a Process
It’s a process. Is there anything more annoying that a therapist can say? Isn’t my job to help people feel better, not just state the obvious? Yet sometimes I have to accept that there is no roadmap or perfect tool to offer my client. We have to just acknowledge that it’s a process and sit in a place where things feel chaotic and stuck and full of contradictions that can’t be solved.
Sitting at my desk at home, looking out at the same view I have looked at for many weeks, feeling unsure about everything, finding no answers in the newspaper or on Twitter to reassure me… I guess this time of COVID-19 is “a process.”
The “process” is exceedingly hard on people. It’s not like other types of stressors. We do pretty darn well when there is an immediate major crisis. If there is an earthquake, we go into survival mode and shift our priorities into the basics of life and death. We protect ourselves and our loved ones. While we may be terrified, we may also find relief in letting go of the pressure of trying to keep everything in life under our control.
Humans are also reasonably equipped to manage rebuilding. The earthquake is over, we assess what’s lost and we grieve and we commit to the life that is still with us. This isn’t a quick or painless transition, but we generally can do it with some support. We may even get energized to create a new life that’s more aligned with our values and desires.
We even have abilities to cope when earthquakes are a constant normal for us and we live in an extended life or death crisis. It damages our minds and bodies terribly when we have to remain in chronic survival mode. But we can do it.
Where we end up flailing and failing the most is when we know the ground is shaking, but we can’t gage how badly it’s shaking. We don’t know if it’s going to get worse or better, or worse and then better, or better and then worse. We sort of know we will be okay in the end and at times it feels like it’s really not that bad but maybe it is that bad and maybe we won’t be okay.
This is what COVID-19 is for us. It’s known and unknown, hope and despair, control and no control, safety and no safety all packaged together and spinning us out into states of overwhelm and a roller-coaster of emotional states. We keep trying to calibrate but can’t find the sweet spot where we can stop tumbling and stabilize. Do I relax or do I stay vigilant? Do I stay in survival mode or do I try to feel normal? Can I do both? Why can’t I do both? Why am I so tired?
While I am not sure why we haven’t evolved to be better at coping with the process, I do know that our ineptitude at dealing with it ensures our emotional interdependence. If no one has a fix for the process or a strategy to conquer it or a bullet point list of tools to master it, then what else do we have but the comfort of being in it together?
When I can let go of the fantasy of magically transporting myself or anyone else out of the discomfort of the process, I sit in the truth of what the time of COVID-19 is really like for any human, for all of us. To anyone mentally or emotionally suffering, I can say, it’s not your fault if you’re flailing here. It doesn’t mean anything bad about you. I can say, you’re not alone. I’m right here with you. Even if you feel alone, even if you are actually alone in your home or alone on a ventilator in the hospital, you are not alone. My humanity is tied to yours, in all the certainty and uncertainty, the darkness and the light, and all the weird spaces between.
What a Pandemic Does to Grief
Pandemic stress has a psychological component that affects people in many ways. That includes those who are grieving. Normally, after the death of a loved one, the world seems to stop for those left behind. Grief isolates and provides a period for processing loss. Grief after traumatic circumstances — devastating illness or injury; sudden death that leaves no time to say goodbye; murder; suicide; man-made or natural disasters that take many lives — adds complex layers. But what happens to those who are grieving during a pandemic, a traumatic horror in itself? With so many deaths around us from COVID-19 and the deaths that would occur even without the pandemic, how are these sorrows mourned? Is grief itself changed because of what is going on now?
The most obvious answer centers on how loved ones die from the virus and what restrictions govern the custom of families gathering for comfort and funerals. Dying alone or in hospital but unable to be surrounded by family members, the need for careful handling of bodies in often limited space, and a limit on how and when services can be held as well as who may attend has changed the oldest customs we have. Medical workers are trying to fill in the gap, taking on the role of “family” as best they can. Connecting through technology can help, but these changes are enormous and very difficult to bear.
Deaths from other causes and terminal diagnoses continue whether we have a declared emergency or not. Families may not live near each other as they often did in the past, and when they do, they are limited in how they can help each other under current conditions. Getting creative to stay in contact does help, and these efforts do lift spirits. The main thing to remember is that people need to know they are not forgotten. A phone call or text is important, especially when displayed effects of grieving are met with kindness.
Due to extreme isolation, increased safety measures, and all the attention put on the special circumstances we are enduring now is changing the grief experience in other important ways.
Without physical touch and the freedom to go where we want to go, reaching out for support becomes harder, especially for those living alone. Being alone after decades with a significant other or losing a precious child or other family member or friend comes with shock that requires extra nurturing and continuing support. Getting out there virtually may be the best we can do right now, even for appointments with doctors or counselors, but remembering this is temporary may help.
The pandemic crisis may exaggerate numbness (another symptom of grief) even toward the pandemic and its coverage. For most of us, recent changes have brought hardship and shock, but those who are grieving may suffer more pain than they think they can bear … or they may wonder why they don’t seem to care much about the human suffering going on around them. Both extremes are normal grief responses exacerbated by circumstance. A little encouragement and providing help lines and reassurance can go a long way in helping. Make sure they know they can call anytime.
Grief affects the mind. Forgetfulness, weeping, anxiety and depression are all things that can make people feel unwell. They may fear they are “losing” their minds. Loss brings changes, most of them painful and confusing. Often it seems that will be a permanent state, which is very discouraging. New survivors may feel it isn’t fair that the world is focused on the pandemic when their own worlds have collapsed, or they may see what is happening as a tearing away of their time to mourn. They feel what they feel. These feelings can change from moment to moment. Many words spoken by a stranger, casual acquaintance, or someone closer, well-intentioned or not, may only add to the level of pain. A better option would be to admit you do not know what they feel but you care.
Trying to go to work as an essential part of the nation’s structure or work from home, care for children or handle finances and legal matters create difficult balancing acts. A pandemic, with its shortage of supplies, puts undue stress on everyone. Trying to figure out why a loved one died the way he or she did can lead to many hours of searching the moments of the past for things that could have been done differently. Finality and recognition that they did not have the control over their lives and their loved ones that they thought they did takes time to accept.
As with the current pandemic, there is no cure for grief. No one else can take on the task, but survival is possible.
China reports one new coronavirus case versus 12 a day earlier
Reuters: Health
China reported one new coronavirus case for May 1, down from 12 a day earlier, data from the country’s health authority showed on Saturday.
Exclusive: U.S. coronavirus stimulus went to some healthcare providers facing criminal inquiries
Reuters: Health
Eager to bolster the healthcare system during the coronavirus pandemic, the U.S. government last month sped $30 billion in stimulus payments to most healthcare providers that billed Medicare last year.
Mexico reports 1,515 new coronavirus cases, 113 deaths
Reuters: Health
Mexico's health ministry reported on Friday 1,515 new known coronavirus cases and 113 deaths, bringing the country's total to 20,739 cases and 1,972 deaths.
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