Community outbreaks ‘could stem from mass hysteria’
Poorly handled episodes likely to stoke anger, warns new virus taskforce
SOME local coronavirus outbreaks may just be mass hysteria, the Government’s new body in charge of Britain’s response has warned, as many could wrongly believe they are infected.
The Joint Biosecurity Centre, which has taken the lead on coordinating the virus response in place of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, has said it will be alert to the possibility of “local episodes of mass psychogenic illness”. If these are “poorly handled”, they could cause “substantial anxiety, anger and loss of trust in the community”.
Mass psychogenic illness, which used to be referred to as mass hysteria, is when people in a community start feeling sick at the same time even though there is no physical or environmental reason for them to be ill.
The warning was revealed in a note published by Sage at the end of June and written by officials from the JBC in May. The note stated: “In previous public health incidents, episodes of mass psychogenic illness or increased symptom reporting, or requests for testing, have occurred as a result of heightened population anxiety or media reporting.
“These will complicate the epidemiological picture, but if poorly handled, mass psychogenic illness can also provoke substantial anxiety, anger and loss of trust in a community. JBC should be alert to the possibility of local episodes of mass psychogenic illness and should quickly discuss suspicions with public health teams.”
The note cited a case from 1998 where a teacher at a school in the US noticed a gasoline-like smell in her classroom and soon had a headache, nausea and shortness of breath. Ninety-nine pupils and teachers were taken to hospital and reported similar symptoms but officials were unable to find a medical or environmental explanation.
The note also included a critical assessment of the Government’s approach to care homes during the pandemic, where hospitals were initially told to discharge patients into the homes without needing a virus test first.
In a section exploring how to incentivise the public to report Covid-19 outbreaks, it said: “Prioritising NHS over care homes is another example where the intention to improve overall health outcomes distorted decisions and led to the virus being seeded in care homes so that the intention of the policy was not achieved.”
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said: “We have been doing everything we can to protect care home residents and staff during this unprecedented global pandemic.
“We provided new guidance for care homes on infection control on March 13. We have since introduced testing for all residents and staff, made £3.7billion available to local authorities to ease pressures on local services including social care, [and] released more than 168million items of PPE for social care providers.”