MHM Magazine

The world is now almost two years into the COVID-19 pandemic. Taking ourselves back to the first lockdown in South Africa on 27 March 2020 so many thought it would be a short-term measure and we’d soon be back to our normal lifestyle. As the months progressed, we were faced with waves of infection and up- and-down stages of lockdown depending on the infection rate. In the last week, the media worldwide reported with great concern the identification of a new Covid-19 variant detected in South Africa, i.e. the Omicron (B.1.1.529): SARS-CoV-2 Variant. The world immediately closed ranks and within days numerous travel bans were imposed on South Africa, despite this variant already been identified in other countries. This variant has a large number of mutations, some of which are concerning. Preliminary evidence suggests it may have the ability to evade COVID vaccines and increase the risk of reinfection. Currently the WHO classified Omnicron as a VOI (Variant of Interest), but most likely to be a VOC (Variant of Concern). To explain the World Health Organisation has working definitions for the SARS-CoV-2, i.e. Variant of Interest (VOI) and Variant of Concern (VOC). A SARS-CoV-2 VOI is a SARS- CoV-2 variant: • with genetic changes that are predicted or known to affect virus characteristics such as transmissibility, disease severity, immune escape, diagnostic or therapeutic escape; AND • that has been identified as causing significant community transmission or multiple COVID-19 clusters, in multiple countries with increasing relative prevalence alongside increasing number of cases over time, or other apparent epidemiological impacts to suggest an emerging risk to global public health.  A SARS-CoV-2 VOC is a SARS- CoV-2 variant that meets the definition of a VOI (see above) and, through a comparative assessment, has been demonstrated to be associated with one or more of the following changes at a degree of global public health significance: • increase in transmissibility or detrimental change in COVID-19 epidemiology, OR • increase in virulence or change in clinical disease presentation, OR • decrease in effectiveness of public health and social measures or available diagnostics, vaccines, therapeutics. Entering ‘Covid-19’ into Google delivered 9 040 000 000 results (November 2021), yes, over 9 billion results. Attempting Google Scholar indicated 4 530 000 results of hopefully scientific articles and reports. PubMed, the search engine of the US National Library of Medicine delivered 202,239 results for Covid-19. Keeping in mind that this explosion of data and information occurred in the last two years since the first identification of the virus. The question I continue to ask is how healthcare professionals deal and cope with the current pandemic. With the current evidence it appears that South Africa will now be facing a definite Fourth Wave in December 2021 which might stretch into early 2022. Multiple presentations, lectures, webinars, and articles have been published in our country to alert all healthcare professionals to take note and look after their own mental health. In their article, Shanafelt et al. interestingly summarise five needs expressed by healthcare professionals during the pandemic as follows: ‘Hear me, protect me, prepare me, support me, and care for me.’ Listening sessions were held with healthcare professionals and discussions consistently centered on eight sources of anxiety as follows: 1. access to appropriate personal protective equipment, 2. being exposed to COVID-19 at work and taking the infection home to their family, 3. not having rapid access to testing if they develop COVID-19 symptoms and concomitant fear of propagating infection at work, 4. uncertainty that their organization will support/take care of their personal and family needs if they develop infection, HEALTHCARE WORKERS IN THE TIME OF COVID-19 EDITORIAL Dr Frans A Korb Psychiatrist Issue 6 | 2021 | MENTALHEALTHMATTERS | 1 MHM