Seasonal upper respiratory infections are not new, but we are responding with a new emotion—fear. We have been traumatized by the pandemic, and that has created a unique form of post-traumatic stress disorder. Some of us will need treatment, but most of us can snap out of it. How and when we conquer our fear will determine the world we give our children.
The normal brain is not like a security camera. Instead of recording activity, sensations, and body conditions in a continuous moment-to-moment reel, typical memories are collections of patterns and associations. Gaps between significant events are cut from our recollection. A birdwatcher is more likely to remember rare species observed rather than the order or times birds are seen during an outing.
Intense emotions change the way memories are made. These emotions need not be unpleasant; it is the intensity of feelings that matters. During these moments, memories are seared into the brain in vivid detail. It is more than what happened; the emotions of the experience become part of the memories.
Trauma is the body’s response to imminent danger. The threat can be against your status, your self-image, or your very life. Trauma does not require real danger; the perception of danger is enough. If the threat seems real and the emotions intense, a traumatic memory can result.
Trauma changes the mind. We have a primitive impulse to protect ourselves from harm. When we encounter a situation that reminds of a past threat, we instinctively defend ourselves using the acute stress response—fight, flight, freeze or fawn. Individuals triggered in this way can be combative, avoidant, catatonic, or irrationally conciliatory. First recognized in World War I veterans as “shell shock,” this is the basis for our modern understanding of post-traumatic stress disorder.
Collective trauma can change a generation. Those who lived through the Great Depression endured a period of inescapable poverty. Shantytowns sprang up as the number of destitute increased. Those who survived this period abhor waste, hoarding items of little value because they fear running out. Traumatized by their collective experience, many who grew up during this time could never shake their fear, and this fear limited their future productivity. Known as the Silent Generation, this is the only generation of Americans to not produce a President.
Trauma causes trauma. The response to trauma by one person can cause a trauma in another person, creating a deteriorating spiral of disfunction. For example, patterns of violence are often observed in families, passed from one generation to the next. The traumatized may vow to never allow themselves to be threatened again, resulting in a display of power that threatens others, and the cycle perpetuates. This is what the pandemic has done to us.
COVID-19 has been traumatic. We survivors have lived through a mortal threat. Most of us know someone—probably someone close—that succumbed to COVID-19. Deaths associated with COVID-19 are still happening today, but not nearly at the rates of 2020. We sought protection in vaccines and expensive new drugs, and we wanted to believe they could save us from this deadly threat. Now our fear is exploited by unscrupulous leaders who tell us it will work only if we all believe. Just as the virus posed a threat to our lives, the response by those in power poses a threat to our liberty. Those who do not comply with the plan of protection do not deserve the fundamental rights of a human being. They are not human—they are other than human.
How do we break this cycle?
First, we must put the threat in context. Although a threat still exists, we have advanced in the fight against COVID-19. Deaths from COVID-pneumonia this winter are comparable to deaths from community acquired pneumonia during pre-pandemic years.
Using 2019 US Census Bureau data and the weekly COVID mortality data for December 25, 2021 published on the CDC’s COVID Data Tracker, I calculate an overall annualized COVID mortality rate of 7.5 per 100,000 population, which is higher than the rate published on CDC’s website. During the mild flu season of 2011-12, the annualized flu mortality per 100,000 population was 3.8, about half the current rate of COVID mortality. But during the severe flu seasons of 2014-15 and 2017-18, the annualized mortality per 100,000 population was over 15, double the current rate of COVID mortality. The current COVID-19 mortality rate is less than flu in a bad year.
Second, we must put the vaccine debate in context. A recent MMWR report shows that individuals who were both unvaccinated and uninfected during the Delta wave had a higher incidence of hospitalization. Vaccination keeps people out of the hospital, but at what cost?
A critical analysis of Pfizer’s FDA submission data shows that vaccination is associated with two extra cardiac deaths for every COVID death avoided. The same data shows that all-cause mortality is greater among those who received vaccine (15/22,000) than placebo (14/22,000). By the way, if you want to review this data for yourself, search for Table S4 in the supplementary information. Table S4 is referenced in the article, but it is not published there. To paraphrase the Wizard, you are to pay no attention to the data behind the curtain.
Finally, we must let go of our fear. Easy to say, hard to do. Trauma has a way of working fear into your body; you cannot just eliminate it with the strength of your will. Everyone’s specific path will be different. Those most severely affected by post-pandemic stress disorder will need professional treatment; these individuals deserve our compassion. But generally, we let go of unrealistic fears by realizing the monster is not scarier than other risks we face daily.
One way to do this is to give the fear a name—“name it to tame it.” Calling out what scares us is a way to release unrealistic fears. For example, COVID has caused many of us to be afraid of people who have different ideas about the pandemic, but when we realize this is a fear of diversity, it may be easier to let that fear go.
We cannot expect everyone will choose the same course of action, but we must treat each other with respect anyway. The same MMWR report that shows vaccination keeps people out of the hospital also shows that those with natural immunity are about half as likely to be hospitalized as those with vaccine-induced immunity alone. Does that mean we should fear those who have avoided SARS-CoV-2 infection? Of course not. But neither should we fear the unvaccinated or unmasked. Fear makes us vulnerable to manipulation designed to perpetuate the pandemic. We must stand fearlessly against irrational one-size-fits-all policies.
The pain of the pandemic is present still. The pandemic has taken lives. Our pandemic response is breaking lives and destroying livelihoods. Some of you may no longer fear COVID-19, but you still fear losing your job, losing access to medical care, or being ostracized for your beliefs. We cannot let trauma trap us in pandemic forever. What we do now determines the type of life we pass to the next generation.
We love our children and desire to bequeath a better world to them. We cannot make them spend their lives cleaning up this mess. For the sake of our children, we must allow our traumatic memories to fade.
