Coronaphobia - An Emerging Mental Disorder Super-Spreading Globally by Communication

Communication on the COVID-19 pandemic has been distorting the emerging scientific evidence and has led to the unprecedented closure of societies (‘lockdown’). The ‘collateral damage’ caused by Corona control measures is affecting the lives and livelihoods of billions of people world-wide, especially the vulnerable, and most probably costing the lives of hundreds of thousands. This has promoted a new mental disorder, ‘coronaphobia’, an epidemic of fear, spreading faster than the virus itself, and permitting a surprising degree of acceptance even of very harsh control measures. It is argued that societies’ reaction to epidemics should adapt to the emerging evidence, and that they should more strictly adhere to well-established public health principles.