For just over two years, one of the largest health emergencies of the modern era has been experienced. Based on the World Health Organization (WHO), 326 million cases have been identified and the number increases every day. The majority of all people have recovered thanks to timely medical attention. But something that should be paid attention to is that Covid-19 generates various effects on patients and the rest of the world population. The most recent damage that has been identified is tunnel vision and then we are going to explain what it consists of.
Especially during the last weeks the topic that has captured the attention is the Omicron Variation and its rapid advance through the world. The fact that it is as contagious as measles has made people feel more nervous and insecure. Given this, the professor of the Faculty of Psychology (FP) of the UNAM, Melisa Chávez Guerrero, assures that it is a normal and understandable reaction because in the face of any strange situation or threat to our health it is inevitable to experience it.
It adds that Covid-19 impacts physical and emotional well-being, as evidenced by the notable increase in conditions related to anxiety and depression registered from 2020 to date. While much of it is due to a inadequate management of our fears, he specified.
Given the information regarding the number of infections and deaths, the university specialist recommended restraint in the face of the avalanche of data and keeping calm everywhere, which could help reduce the impact of Ómicron on the mental health.
“The risk is that our attention is focused only on the pandemic and the threat it represents to us. If we place ourselves in that scenario, it is very likely that we will succumb to fear and ignore the environment. This phenomenon is known as ‘tunnel vision’, and implies a tendency to see only what is in front of us and become blind to the rest”.
What does it consist of?
In that sense, this phenomenon usually affect the ability to perceive stimuli from our environment. It usually appears in situations of great stress because in these cases we pay attention exclusively to what is related to the threat we perceive and forget everything else.
This is precisely what is happening today, both in people who have been infected and in the rest. For this reason, the academic suggests “giving ourselves a break” and carrying out other activities such as watching something on television that relaxes us, putting together puzzles, spending time with the family and resuming habits that the pandemic made us forget, for example, laughing.
“That does not imply that we underestimate the severity of Covid-19 or that we consider that, because they told us that Ómicron is milder, we should stop worrying. It is necessary to continue on this route of taking care of ourselves and it includes attending to both the physical and the mental”.
Meanwhile, for the professor at the Faculty of Medicine, Rocío Tirado Mendoza, the sudden presence of a new variant that in weeks displaced Delta from the epidemiological field, changed the rules of the game.
“Omicron’s appearance was untimely and that is why it is so disconcerting. In what sense? In that it began to be distributed very quickly and in much shorter times. This has caused that in a few days we have knowledge of known people infected or suspected of having Covid-19, which generates a feeling of a narrowing circle.
He stressed that the current situation generates too much stress in the population and increases with the daily appearance of fake news about the Coronavirus; receiving confusing information increases our fears.
Rocío Tirado suggested not taking everything that comes to us for granted without first contrasting it with what the experts say, not even those publications shared via networks or WhatsApp by our most trusted family members or friends. “Science tells us that RNA viruses tend to mutate and more variants will surely appear, which is to be expected, but ensuring that a new virus with the worst of Delta and the high transmissibility of Omicron circulates around, not only generates fear, It also misinforms.”