SAFE GC Coalition: COVID and People with No History of Psychosis

According to data from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the COVID-19 pandemic may have lasting effects on the psychiatric care of patients. Emerging data, historical studies and expert opinion point to a tremendous impact of COVID19 on the development and exacerbation of psychiatric issues. The pandemic has served to amplify personal, social and economic costs of mental illness to a magnitude that's unprecedented.

CDC data have shown a significant increase in symptoms of anxiety disorder and depressive disorder since the pandemic began. Numerous study findings have shown adverse psychiatric outcomes, including increased psychosocial stressors, such as life disruption, fear of illness or fear of negative economic effects; phobic anxiety; binge-watching television, which has been linked to mood and sleep disturbances; increased social media exposure; increased alcohol sales and use; and increased calls to domestic abuse and child abuse hotlines.

Moreover, recent data from local and state sources indicate that individuals those without any pre-existing mental health disorders are developing severe psychotic symptoms. A recent article in The New York Times discusses this very situation identified by Doctors this Summer at South Oaks Hospital in Amityville, N.Y. The only notable thing about patients medical history was that they had become infected with the coronavirus in the spring. Patients had experienced only mild physical symptoms from the virus, but, months later, experienced auditory hallucinations.

Doctors are reporting similar cases across the country and around the world. A small number of Covid patients who had never experienced mental health problems are developing severe psychotic symptoms weeks after contracting the coronavirus. Beyond individual reports, a British study of neurological or psychiatric complications in 153 patients hospitalized with Covid-19 found that 10 people had “new-onset psychosis.” Another study identified 10 such patients in one hospital in Spain. And in Covid-related social media groups, medical professionals discuss seeing patients with similar symptoms in the Midwest, Great Plains and elsewhere.

Medical experts say they expect that such extreme psychiatric dysfunction will affect only a small proportion of patients. But the cases are considered examples of another way the Covid-19 disease process can affect mental health and brain function.