A health battle for hearts and minds

Coronavirus presents us with a mental health challenge just as much as a public health one.

Batten down the hatches. We’re in this for the long haul. That was the clear and united message from the Scottish and UK governments yesterday and their most senior medical advisers.

Any lingering hopes that the current three weeks of lockdown would end with a significant easing of the restrictions imposed on our daily lives has been decisively quashed.

Bringing the coronavirus outbreak under control is going to take months of upheaval and disruption even if they may not all be under the current lockdown arrangements. For some of this period, the restrictions may be stricter.

That is going to be tough.

It will be hard on the NHS and other public services, hard on businesses and hard on individuals.

The impact on the last, across all walks of life, must never be underestimated.

What we are facing over the coming months will not just be a public health crisis, but a mental health one too.

Few, if any, of us are immune from the anxiety that such seismic changes to our ordinary lives bring.

One of our most eloquent modern writers, Matt Haig, is among those to have already talked openly on social media about the personal toll this anxiety can take and the inevitability of it spilling over into our interactions with others.

The longer we are under lockdown, the greater the mental health toll is likely to be. We may joke about the challenges of being locked up with our families, but in reality it is no laughing matter. Being confined with the same people for weeks, if not months on end, will be as trying as the problems that will be experienced by many at the other end of the spectrum, social isolation.

At a time when our health and care services will be facing unprecedented pressures, they will be illprepared for lending anything but emergency support. Even in normal times, mental health services have been hopelessly overstretched.

Ways in which we can maintain good mental health must be central to the advice that our political leaders and their advisers share in the coming months. That might start with a daily walk, for those that are able, but will involve much more. Regular phone calls or social media hangouts will become part of our daily routine.

The honest and compassionate conversations that Haig and others have started must continue and grow.

Greater understanding and mutual support will be required in the coming months to keep us all well.