As the coronavirus pandemic rapidly sweeps across the world, it is inducing a considerable degree of fear, worry and concern in the population at large and among certain groups in particular, such as older adults, care providers and people with underlying health conditions.
We, university students, are increasingly recognized as a vulnerable population, suffering from higher levels of anxiety, depression, substance abuse, and disordered eating compared to the general population. Therefore, when the nature of our educational experience radically changes—such as sheltering in place during the COVID-19 pandemic—the burden on the mental health of this vulnerable population is amplified. The first two or three months of lockdown were kind of good and satisfying but after that the real anxiety started. We moved to a different city just before the lockdown and of course all of my friends were not there to hang out with. I have suffered a little bit mentally and physically because I was playing, studying and doing different stuff before lockdown that helped me mentally and physically but then this pandemic showed up and all of a sudden everything was gone. I was doing nothing. I was not playing, studying actually I was doing nothing. It was depressing in a sense that there was no physical activity for me that may have been kept me going. The first time I heard about the COVID-19 virus was towards the end of January 2020. I didn’t care that much about it because I thought it was going to be a similar situation like the H1N1 and Ebola virus, where you had government officials making statements about the threat of this virus but nothing drastically changed asides from the learning of a new technique of how to properly sneeze into our elbows instead of our hands. Most of the news coverage was focused on the impact the virus had in the city of Wuhan, China. At the time, I was studying for my finals and getting ready to start my 3rd semester as an undergraduate student I guess the two words that best described how I felt during this moment were uncertainty and anxiety. Uncertainty because I didn’t know what to expect from this whole situation and anxiety because I had no control over what was transpiring in a short amount of time. I understand that everyone wants things to go back to normal, but I’m okay with sacrificing our liberties for the benefit of our society. I must admit our family has been lucky that our finances have not been impacted by the lockdown of our economy. Things may take time to get normal but we must go with the flow. I have changed my routine. There are some workouts and other stuff that helped me coming back to normal life. At this particular moment, it is extremely difficult to contextualize the impact of COVID19. One thing guaranteed from this historical event is that things would never be the same again as the once used to be.
Muhammad Uzair Shakil
004
Mat 12 (B)