Where is/was the Mind in COVID-19 Causality?

May 13, 2022 Minding Corona No Comments

This is the title of an article – by me – in the high-level medical journal ‘Brain, Behavior, & Immunity – Health,’ edition May 2022.

With pain and all due respect, I dedicate it to the 18 million COVID mortality worldwide ― according to this recent publication in Nature magazine. Because of more naturalistic measurements, this number is higher than the Worldometers number of 6.3 million, of which 1 million (officially) have been reported in the US ― until now.

I hope we’re out of the woods, but nobody knows. The next move of the virus may surprise us big time, as this virus has done several times.

Here is the abstract

Two years into the pandemic, hardly any studies have been done regarding the influence of the mind on COVID-19. However, there is much circumstantial evidence. The mind influences the body in ways relevant to COVID-19. Unfortunately, of the scientifically proven mental factors influencing immunology, many have been intensified by lockdowns. Relevant research might help us see COVID-19 not as a disease straightforwardly caused by a virus but by a whirlpool of factors in which the virus and mind play essential roles. Social nocebo (mass psychogenic illness) may be a significant mind-related factor in the whirlpool through heightening the suggestive idea that worse will come. This insight might bring a more profound view of the human social condition, transcending the present disaster. Meanwhile, the whirlpool metaphor may help acute COVID-19 patients and long-haulers, letting them understand that their mind is one element in the whole, no more and no less.

You find the entire text in open access (for free, by courtesy) on the journal’s website. In it, I mention social nocebo about which you find more in another article.

I have done my best to draw attention to this topic since March 2020, almost totally in vain. I don’t get it. The level of active denial sincerely boggles my mind and hurts my soul. Meanwhile, I documented many elements in a book and several scientific articles.

The core

The core of the matter is the (lack of) acceptability of a modern basic scientific view on the human being, as I described in the article, many blogs, and several books, including my Ph.D. thesis in 2014. This is relevant for COVID and many other medical fields as well as domains outside of medicine, such as the global business world and geopolitics. Since the scientific view is basic, it is continually, ubiquitously relevant, and increasingly urgent for all. That includes you, dear reader.

I guess those trying to hide it out until it’s no longer relevant have no clue about this.

Help

After carefully reading the article, please comment if you want. Please share it with your contacts and groups, scientists, and politicians if you think this should be thoroughly researched. Proper mind-related medical science – which one must fight for nowadays – may bring insights into what has happened and thus substantially save us from future disasters. As to this one, my intuition (not yet science) tells me that a lot of people and money could have been saved while avoiding much social mayhem.

Eventually, the truth will prevail ― an increasingly inconvenient one if we don’t strive for it enough. On the other hand, it is an increasingly positive one if we act upon it together toward a better future.