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How to Manage Your Fear During the Coronavirus

Fear of the virus may be more infectious than the virus itself

Tom Jacobs
Elemental
5 min readMar 5, 2020
Image: Xia Yang/Getty Images

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ItIt can harm people’s health and weaken entire societies. Thanks to modern technology, it can spread rapidly around the world. And there is no effective vaccine.

I’m not referring to Covid-19, although the coronavirus can serve as its catalyst. Rather, an infectious agent that is as old as civilization itself and is rapidly reaching epidemic proportions: fear.

Fear can take both a physical and psychological toll. It thrives in an atmosphere of distrust and confusion. As Franklin Roosevelt famously remarked, as he began his Depression-era presidency, fear needs to be identified and confronted.

“The fear of the virus may spread faster than the virus itself,” says Norbert Schwarz, a provost professor of psychology and marketing at the University of Southern California. “Unfortunately, that fear will also spread to totally unrelated domains of life. A decade ago, the threat of swine flu not only increased Americans’ concern about getting the flu — it also increased the perceived risk of getting a heart attack, dying in an accident, or being the victim of crime.”

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Elemental
Elemental

Published in Elemental

Elemental is a former publication from Medium for science-backed health and wellness coverage. Currently inactive and not taking submissions.

Tom Jacobs
Tom Jacobs

Written by Tom Jacobs

Tom Jacobs is a California-based journalist who focuses on psychology, behavior, creativity, and the arts. He was the senior staff writer of Pacific Standard.

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