Years of life lost due to the psychosocial consequences of COVID19 mitigation strategies based on Swiss data

Dominik Andreas Moser; Jennifer Glaus; Sophia Frangou; Daniel Scott Schechter

None of the existing models have focused on the possible adverse effects at a population level of these mitigation strategies. These can be intuitively anticipated but have never been rigorously modelled (4) . The cause of the adverse mental health outcomes can be attributed to the emotional and physiological effects of reduced physical activity, social interaction and human physical contact (5) (6) (7) . To exemplify the scope, studies from the SARS epidemic found that the length of quarantine was an important predictor of PTSD, depression and anxiety with a cumulative prevalence potentially exceeding 30% of the population (8, 9) . Psychosocial stressors such as marriage separations and loneliness are also likely to spike in confinement and have adverse effects to mental and physical health (10) (11) (12) (13) . Available data suggest that stress associated with population-wide disasters increase the level of violence, including domestic violence and child abuse (14, 15) . These are recognised risk factors for mental health and substance abuse problems (16) as well as suicide (17) .