Stringent Covid curbs taking a toll on mental health of Chinese citizens

Around 20% of Chinese junior and senior high school students experienced suicidal ideation during the lockdowns.

Beijing, Dec 20: The zero-Covid policy and the resultant limitless lockdown strategy adopted by the Chinese government to contain the resurgence of the pandemic is having an adverse effect on its citizens as millions of people are suffering from critical mental health issues, according to a report published by a centre of geopolitics and international relations.

Although China has lifted many draconian restrictions recently, the impact of the constant lockdown is taking a severe toll on its own people. As many as 54 million people in China are experiencing depression with 41 million suffering from anxiety disorders over its Covid measures, as per the World Health Organization (WHO).

"China's lockdowns have had a huge human cost with the shadow of mental-ill health adversely affecting China's culture and economy for years to come," Geopolitica said citing a report published in 'The Lancet', a highly reputed British medical journal. "China's lockdowns have had a huge human cost with the shadow of mental-ill health adversely affecting China's culture and economy for years to come," The Lancet wrote in an editorial in its June 2022 issue.

The Economist had noted that in Wuhan, the place where the deadly virus was first identified, witnessed a 79 per cent hike in suicides during the first quarter of 2020 compared to the previous year. Quoting a survey, the magazine stated that 40 per cent people were at risk of depression in Shanghai after lockdown was imposed in the financial hub of China earlier this year.

The British weekly magazine has highlighted the survey's stats that showed 26 million residing in Shanghai searched for psychological counselling on Baidu, a Chinese search engine like Google, and it increased by 253 per cent.

As per the Geopolitica report, China has just 40,000 certified psychiatrists which means three psychiatrists per 1,00,000 population and most of these psychiatrists work in the developed eastern coastal region of China, thereby leaving a huge treatment gap for mental disorders in the country's western and central areas.

Nonetheless, China has a different argument as it claims that the stringent Covid restrictions resulted in low pandemic-related death numbers because just 15,986 people died because of the Covid infections compared to the 6.6 million people worldwide. It has to be noted that the US lost 1.08 million people to Covid.

Going by the Japanese investment bank Nomura's estimates, about 412 million people had to suffer some kind of lockdown in China by the end of November which is almost one-third of the Chinese population.

The lockdown restricted the people's access to healthcare and food in cities like Shanghai, Guangzhou and Wuhan as the authorities doubled down their efforts to curb Covid spread by sealing up buildings and locking down areas, according to Geopolitica. Many school children were not permitted to go home and 15-year-old children were forced to stay at hotels. They did not have anybody to talk to as they were stuck with extreme isolation.

Quoting a report published in a US journal 'Current Psychology', Geopolitca said that around 20% of Chinese junior and senior high school students in lockdowns experienced suicidal ideation. Similarly, a Fudan University survey of around 4,500 young people conducted earlier this year, showed that some 70% of students expressed varying degrees of anxiety.

On the other hand, the cases of COVID-19 are on the huge rise as the epidemiologist estimates that over 60 per cent of China and 10 percent of Earth's population are likely to be infected over the next 90 days with deaths likely in the millions.

After protests against COVID restrictions turned violent, the authorities decided to ease the curbs resulting in a massive surge in cases. According to the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), China could report 3,22,000 deaths by April 1, as the Covid cases will peak then.