Public battles virus fatigue
It’s been more than six weeks since our physical worlds began closing in on us, from school and business closures that marooned many at home to travel restrictions that put most of our big, beautiful state out of reach.
Even as much of the Denver area remains under a stay-at-home order through Friday, there are increasing signs of fatigue. Each day under the uncomfortable new normal brings a stream of urgent coronavirus headlines and updates — as well as signs that people need an escape, from Denver parks and foothills trails crowded with sun-seekers to busy aisles at suburban home-improvement
stores, which never closed down.
Lucy East understands the reasons for the continuing call for masks, social distancing and other precautions. She and her husband, Jonathan, both civil engineers, are working from home in Wheat Ridge. They’re being careful by ordering grocery deliveries and keeping their toddler out of day care to limit the family’s exposure.
But the longer it lasts, the lockdown takes a quiet emotional toll. The couple’s daughter, Alice, turned 1 on Thursday. Her grandparents are eager for family time.
“It’s getting a bit harder as time goes on not to see friends and family, especially for a birthday,” East said.
At times, frustrations have boiled over, as when a post on the Nextdoor site in northwest Denver declared last week: “It’s time to get back to living life.” The post quickly was met with competing torrents of applause and indignation. A day later, it had been taken down.
The rest of the state, along with Douglas County, began transitioning last week to Gov. Jared Polis’ “safer-at-home” order, which allowed many businesses to reopen with certain restrictions. The order keeps certain social distancing measures in place, and Polis still is urging people to wear masks when out in public — though adherence to this is spotty, at best.
But even as the governor called for continued vigilance and sacrifice, a public health expert who’s helped develop state COVID-19 projections says it’s natural that people are letting their guard down.
“More as a human being, I understand how people over time are feeling cooped up and experiencing this restlessness,” said Elizabeth Carlton, an assistant professor at the Colorado School of Public Health. “As someone who’s worked on the modeling team, I think the message that came through really clear when we were in our last set of simulations is that the next phase of this epidemic in Colorado will really be defined by how well we can maintain a certain amount of distance from each other, as hard as that is.”
Uncertainty in the new normal
How long variations on this new normal will last remains an unanswered question. It’s unclear how much longer it will be before we can go to the movies, attend sporting events or gather to hear live music. Or how long before younger children, after adapting to remote learning, can simply play with their friends again.
A look at the little data that’s available shows plenty of people have skirted the rules at times, whether it’s tossing a frisbee or a football in a park — despite Denver Mayor Michael Hancock’s order against group sports activities — or venturing outside the house for trips deemed “unessential” by government orders.
Google has released periodic reports tracking movement through aggregate location data from people’s mobile phones. Through late March, its data for Colorado showed significant drops in travel to several types of destinations, compared to baseline levels prior to state and local restrictions taking effect.
But as April progressed, Google’s latest report shows, the extent that travel declined compared to baselines was considerably less, especially for trips to shop, eat and seek entertainment. When it comes to visiting parks and other outdoor places, Coloradans went from a 12% average decrease from normal in the March 29 report to 15% above the baseline in the April 26 report.
Some people are eager to move on.
When Echter’s Nursery and Garden Center in Arvada reopened its doors for in-person shopping on Thursday, after limiting sales to pickup orders for weeks, Gerald and Sandra Grant were among dozens of people in a line outside that snaked along the sidewalk and into the parking lot. The Grants said they relied heavily on President Donald Trump’s near-daily press conferences, calling them “encouraging.”
When asked how they were coping with the lockdown, Gerald laughed.
“What lockdown?” he said, before his wife said: “We’re off lockdown now.”
Another measure of fatigue came in a study released last week by the Pew Research Center. When it comes to following coronavirus news, Americans seem to be bordering on burnout.
Pew found 71% of more than 10,000 U.S. adults it surveyed in late April said they needed regular breaks from the news, compared to 28% who said they needed to stay constantly tuned in. More than 40% said COVID-related news made them feel worse emotionally.
Early on, Lucy East said she followed the news incessantly. Then a wellness challenge from her employer encouraged East and her coworkers to limit their news intake to 30 minutes per day. She says doing that has improved her mental health.
But Allea Ryan of Federal Heights still tunes in to broadcast news daily and receives breaking-news alerts on her phone. She likes keeping up, especially since her daughter is considered an essential worker at Walmart.
“I think if we stop hearing about it is when I’d become worried,” Ryan said.
Grappling with “what life might start to look like”
Given the unprecedented nature of the pandemic response, psychologist Michelle Rozenman says any fatigue that develops often is rooted in prolonged stress, loneliness, guilt or exhaustion from new situations in people’s work or home lives.
“At this point, six weeks in, people have had an opportunity to see what life might start to look like,” said Rozenman, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Denver. “So whatever that means for them, however their routines have changed, if there’s a lack of consistency or structure, that may cause a problem.”
That upheaval has saddled children with anxiety and other challenges, too, she said, citing observations from her doctoral students’ remote therapy sessions with families in recent weeks.
Early last week, Polis acknowledged the pain brought by the stay-athome orders. He took the tack of applauding the state’s residents for largely abiding by them. And he pleaded for patience, while announcing later in the week that his administration will put more emphasis on addressing the mental health effects of the crisis.
“There’s no easy answers here at all,” the governor said during his April 27 daily news conference. “We’re being challenged — we’re being asked to make sacrifices in our way. God willing, we should continue to be patient and treat each other with respect and love, knowing that better days (are ahead). … It’s a time not for anxiety, not for fear, but for justified caution.”
Rozenman said adults and children alike can enhance their mental calm in times like this by establishing routines, engaging in some kind of daily exercise, eating healthy food and getting consistent sleep as often as possible.
Carlton, the public health professor, urged common sense as restrictions are relaxed, adding that the onus would increasingly be on elected officials to “communicate what’s OK in addition to what’s not OK” to put people at ease.
As some models predict a second wave of coronavirus infections, she worries about limits in the public’s patience with social and physical restrictions.
“That has been a real big question that we’ve wrestled with,” Carlton said. “Nobody sees stay-at-home orders as sustainable for a very long period of time — or people will get restless.”