Fear whipped up over Covid by the Government and the media has resulted in millions of Brits struggling to return to normal life, according to a report which will warn that people are locking themselves down from within. Set to be published next month, the report identifies “Covid Anxiety Syndrome” as a condition which burdens many with a fear of public places and a need to maintain compulsive hygiene habits. Lucy Johnston in the Sunday Express has more.
Up to one in five is believed to have developed a “compulsive and disproportionate” fear of Covid, which would likely stay in place even if the virus disappeared completely. Warnings about the dangers of Covid have heightened the problem, and mixed messages about the level of danger have made it worse, said Marcantonio Spada, a Professor of Addictive Behaviours and Mental Health at London’s South Bank University, who co-authored the report.
He said: “Our research suggests a number of people may not be able to return to normality even if the pandemic disappeared altogether. Worrying, checking others for symptoms, and avoidance have, over the months, gradually cemented a state of fear about the virus. Life has become restricted, and many people are experiencing a ‘psychological lockdown’ even if we are coming out of the physical one.”
The recently identified condition – Covid Anxiety Syndrome – is characterised by fear of public places, compulsive hygiene habits, worrying about the virus and frequent symptom checking.
The findings from the study, which was undertaken in March and April 2021, showed 46% of people feared returning to public transport, 44% feared touching things, while 35% were checking their family members and loved ones for signs of Covid on a regular basis.
Professor Spada and co-author Ana Nikčević, Professor of Psychology at Kingston University, compared these recent findings to those they had collected in May 2020. They found the patterns to be broadly unchanged.
Overall one in five was “struggling with marked levels of maladaptive behaviour” related to the syndrome. Vaccination status – with around 35% of respondents being vaccinated – and a previous diagnosis of mental health condition did not appear to play a role in the severity of the syndrome which affects people from all professions and educational backgrounds.
Those affected are likely to represent the tip of an iceberg with many others suffering less severe anxiety related to fear of the virus making them feel threatened or afraid of returning to normal.
Professor Spada and his colleague are analysing a sample of 6,000 adults across China, Europe and the U.S. in collaboration with researchers from Imperial College to assess the global prevalence and impact of the syndrome. Results will be published by the summer, but preliminary indications show the syndrome is present across all countries surveyed to varying degrees.
Professor Spada said: “Our research suggests many people may struggle or may not return to normal even if the pandemic disappeared altogether.
“Avoidance locks you into fear. People are now locked down within despite the fall in infection rates and vaccine rollout. It appears that the syndrome affects people from all professions and educational levels.”
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: New polling from Ipsos MORI suggests it may be more than 20% of the population that’s suffering from Covid Anxiety Syndrome. It shows that 28% of British adults aren’t looking forward to “Greeting people with handshake/hug/kiss”, 27% aren’t looking forward to “going to large public gatherings such as sport of music events” and 24% aren’t looking forward to “Going to parties (such as weddings or birthday parties)”.
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Nice piece Chris. Joe Bastardi has also been on this theme recently in his weekly Weather Bell video.
Shhh. Say it quietly, but there might be another variable in all this climate stuff. I’ve noticed it the other day, but none of the scientists seems to. Its a large round thing in the sky. I dont think its very close to us, but it is hot, really hot, It appears each morning, moves across the sky getting warmer and warmer, until it goes below the horizon, when it gets colder, much colder. The other day it went from -5c overnight to +15c in the day, 20 degrees, in a few hours. I was reading something, in the restricted section of course, that it can go as high as 50c. in a few hours.
All this 0.1c by 2050. Its nonsense, obviously. Anyway. Mum’s the word. Don’t want to lose our funding now do we…?
There is another variable which seems to have increased significantly over recent decades and is responsible for all the anthropogenic warming – it is called green funding.
And propaganda, rendering homo sapiens, homo stupidus. The matrix is very good at control and brainwashing.
To the tune of coming trillions!
Whooo you cad! Why didn’t you tell the rest of us about this? Does Antonio Guterres know about it? Please advise him of it,.. it may stop him from being a monumental twathead!
I can’t imagine any force, natural or supernatural, that could achieve that
You do realise that that is an out-of-control fusion reactor, don’t you? It should be banned.
If Billy Gates had his way it would be
Remove the B and the G, you get “ill ates” which is the name of his new insect protein company.
He absolutely would. CO2 is currently 420PPM – one of the lowest points in the Earth’s history but Bill Gates and his batshit mates want to ‘scrub’ it from our atmosphere. Nobody seems to have pointed out to him that if it drops below 250PPM everything on the planet dies. Including Gates.
It’s a bit like saying that my living room isn’t so much being heated by the roaring wood-burning stove, as it is from the CO2 I’m exhaling from my mouth!
Earth sits in relatively close proximity to the sun WITHIN the heliosphere (the sun’s atmosphere). Along with geothermal energy, it is one of the two original sources of all the earth’s heat. You could fit about 1.3 million earths within the sun, and it accounts for roughly 99% of the mass of the solar system. It’s like a grain of sand a metre or so away from a giant bonfire… But of course solar activity can have nothing at all do with climate change – it’s all our fault, obviously!
Thank you for an excellent article, a touch of common sense amongst so much shrieking and hysteria. Who would have thought that a chain of active volcano’s in antarctica, would not cause some warming of those waters.
There’s only one (1) thing causing a major, emergency-power requiring event, to which there is only one (1) solution? Which solution, by pure coincidence (of course), can only be provided by multi-billionaires and their acolyte politician buddies who force taxpayers to pay billions in tax money straight into the multi-billionaires pockets? And the multi-billionaires will then turn out to have nothing by way of solution and will then gaslight the entire world saying they and their whore politician buddies never, ever violated any laws, constitutions, fundamental rights, never thieved off the taxpayer and only ever meant to help mankind and it was just ever such bad luck that it failed and they got miserably rich?
Just because the vaxx was not the solution to the “pandemic”, surely does not mean that eradicating all cows and cars on earth is not the solution to “climate change”?
I’d say even Hollywood hacks would think this script is too worn and incredible now, but looking at all the dimbulbs and their EVs and vegan obsession, I guess not. Not being a scientist, maybe I’m just not capable of seeing how cow farts will cause the world to wither and die.
A group of oceanographers led by the Scripps Institute of Oceanography in San Diego identified in total 19,325 new volcanoes, or seamounts, to add to the existing known total of 24,643.
To be clear seamounts are mostly extinct volcanoes and these are only new in the sense that they are newly discovered. They haven’t suddenly popped up! Nor has oceanographers’ estimate of the total number of sea mounts changed (it is about 100,000 depending on how you define them). All that has happened is that a lot more have been identified. Perhaps it is not surprising that the main stream media have made little of this research.
I should add that the referenced paper did not “Uncover the Role of Undersea Volcanoes in Climate Change”. All it did was map sea mounts. In fact there is no mention of climate in the paper at all!
Chris Morrison’s article made it very clear that these are discoveries of existing seamounts and I don’t think anyone would imagine that they’ve suddenly popped up.
And also his article doesn’t claim that the referenced paper explicitly uncovers ‘the role of undersea volcanoes in climate change’. The headline may suggest it, but I suspect that the Daily Sceptic’s clickbait headlines are not written by the writers of the articles.
The headline may suggest it, but I suspect that the Daily Sceptic’s clickbait headlines are not written by the writers of the articles.
Whoever wrote it, the headline is false and should be corrected.
I thought false headlines were a stock in trade of global warming orthodoxy.
And I feel I should remind you that the undersea volcanoes are likely to be in all stages of their lives. I understand that the continents are still subject to movement of tectonic plates and fresh volcanoes arise as a consequence of that, to put it simply for you, molten rock and associated gases ooze out wherever the plates separate or come together. The rock oozing out tends to be quite hot and the gases both carbon and sulphur oxides.
I remind you that putting hot rocks in a pot is one traditional way of cooking.
See your point, both sides of the science should be considered
Especially as we have knowledge of only 5% of the worlds seabed! (We are more knowledgeable about the surface of the moon!)
Just reading Michael Palin’s book on the first Antarctic expedition, Erebus. Once they breached the pack ice they soon found a couple of volcanoes – Mt Erebus and Mt Terror on Ross Island.
Back in the seventies people like Stephen Schneider were concerned about global cooling. Today these people have forgotten all about global cooling are now on the global warming gravy train. OfCourse the solution to both these crises was———More Government. mmmm. These people come from the “Don’t let a good crisis go to waste” department of government. But it is still the case that a beautiful hypothesis is easily slain by an ugly fact, and when it comes to climate change there are tons of ugly facts flying around. Not that you would know it because BBC and the rest of the bought and paid for media keep them swept firmly under the carpet ———–SSSSHHHHHH.
How on earth do we have the Arrogance to believe we control anything when we’ve only been on the planet for the last 30 seconds of a 24 hour clock?
We are not the owners of this ball! just temporary custodians!
Life will do what it wants, it doesn’t need a verdict from us!
We should be at nature’s feet in humble thankfulness, not spitting in its eye!
Where’s Greta? Obviously learned that all she spake was put in her mouth by others! Hence the quietness when having to speak for herself. A lot has changed since her future being “stolen”! Nothing has changed, and there lies her dumbness! Proof? Pudding? Strangley, the sea hasn’t engulfed her house since she was 15!
She has single handedly done more damage the the world than any human in history! I hope in her “stolen future” she is proud of that fact!
“…runs the risk of opening discussion about the natural forces surrounding the constantly changing climate”
Please, please please… there are multiple climates on earth, not one. As well as the six major climate zones as defined by the large atmospheric cells, driven by the rotation of the earth and the mass of the atmosphere, there are multiple climates within geographic regions, for example Ethiopia has 14 climates which range from Hot Desert to Humid Subtropical to Subpolar Oceanic.
Climate is defined as “the weather conditions prevailing in an area in general or over a long period.” Therefore how would anyone characterize the Earth’s climate (singular)? In addition many people will live on the boundaries between all these climates and will experience change because there is considerable turbulence within the atmosphere and oceans. So far the various tree lines around the world are exactly where they were 200 or more years ago. Russia has not observed the tree line moving north and trees are not moving up mountain ranges. In addition, the six main climate zones mark out, or determine where the rain forests and deserts are and I cannot see how a small increase in the proportion of a trace gas is going to upset any of the convergence zones.
Spot on.
fake climate scientists ignore Undersea Volcanoes
************************************
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Great article. I’d like to know how much CO2 these new volcanos are emitting each year of the 97% natural portion and frame it against the £3 trillion (or 43 million nurses) we’re spending in an apparent ‘fight’ with the UK’s anthropogenic 0.00001% portion. Does anyone know what the annual overall volcanic contribution to CO2 is?
volcanic emissions account for less than 1% of CO2 inputs. Human activities account for about 3% but that 3% is responsible for almost all the increase over the last two centuries. Prior to that CO2 levels had hardly changed for thousands of years. CO2 inputs (including volcanoes) had been in balance with outputs.
There are lots of places where heat from the earth’s inner layers escapes. These include volcanoes on earth and under the sea, and smaller vents around which a selection of organisms is able to tolerate high heat. The activity of all these varies. We know that major eruptions on land can spill enough stuff (dust and gas) to cause global cooling. We know that underwater eruptions cause sea warming which will affect ocean currents, as will changes in the topography of the ocean floor. None of this is man made and man cannot alter it.
Other causes of localised climate change include deforestation and river diversion. These are man made but may produce profound change that by the butterfly effect causes more distant change. Thus Himalayan deforestation causes a failure of water holdback and contributes to flooding in the Pakistan plains.
Given all of this what is needed is a careful analysis of how much each contributes to climate change, and what each actually does temperature-wise, up or down. I suspect that global emissions are a minute percentage.
Yet another great piece, Chris.
Just a reminder that Prof. Ian Plimer’s brilliant book “Heaven and Earth”, way back in 2009, pointed out how many undersea volcanos were known then, and pointed out that this number was without doubt grossly underestimated.(Only a brief mention in a very thorough discussion of Climate, but picked on by the GangGreen zealots even then.)
For this, he got Hedge Fund fraudster Jeremy Grantham’s Imperial College Climate Rottweiler, Bob Ward, to run one of his bogus attacks on Plimer in the Times and George Monbiot to ‘interview’ Plimer on Aussie TV.
“What a rude young man!” as Plimer pointed out when the Moonbat spewed out his lies but refused to engage in any discussion.
Fortunately, His dopey Majesty Charles III’s wise old dad had read the book and arranged to discuss the implications face to face with Plimer and Nigel Lawson.
I’d bet anything, that Charles never even bothered to pick it up.
“Carbon dioxide is well mixed in the atmosphere so it is a valid scientific question to ask why it only warns the surface in this one patch?”
A very good question.
When I was fourteen, I asked my geography teacher a very similar question about The Hole in The Ozone Layer ™ – why it was only over Antarctica.
I also asked him when The Hole first appeared.
No, I never did get any answers from him.
When I was fourteen, I asked my geography teacher a very similar question about The Hole in The Ozone Layer ™ – why it was only over Antarctica.
I also asked him when The Hole first appeared.
I am sorry that your geography teacher was so ill informed – but of course I don’t know when you were 14. Nowadays the answers to both questions are available on the internet. The second question is easily answered. The hole was predicted in theory from the 1970s but first observed by the British Antarctic Survey in 1985.
The answer to the first question is more complicated.
The ozone hole over Antarctica is formed by a slew of unique atmospheric conditions over the continent that combine to create an ideal environment for ozone destruction.
As spring comes to Antarctica, the PSC’s melt in the stratosphere and release all of the halogenated compounds that were previously absorbed to the cloud. In the antarctic summer, high energy photons are able to photolyze the halogenated compounds, freeing halogen radicals that then catalytically destroy O3. Because Antarctica is constantly surrounded by a polar vortex, radical halogens are not able to be diluted over the entire globe. The ozone hole develops as result of this process.