This winter marks five years from the beginning of Covid-19, the infectious disease caused by the SARS-Cov-2 virus, which led to a global pandemic and more than 1.2 million deaths in the United States
To mark the milestone, Pew Research Center conducted an investigation to assess Americans’ views on the current Covid risk and how the pandemic was handled.
About 21% of respondents said they still consider Covid-19 to be a “major threat” to the health of the US population, down from 67% in July 2020.
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More than half (56%) of Americans say Covid-19 is not something to worry, and 39% believe that people do not take it seriously, the survey has been found.
This winter marks five years from the beginning of Covid-19, the infectious disease caused by the SARS-Cov-2 virus, which led to a global pandemic and more than 1.2 million deaths in the United States (istock)
About 40% of Americans think that Covid-19 is “no worse” than cold or flu, while 56% say it’s worse than those diseases, the survey found.
As for testing, 63% of people say they have to do a covid test when they feel sick, while one third says there is a “no point” to do this.
In the event of another pandemic, just over 60% of respondents said that the public health system will do “a very good job” to deal with a future health crisis.
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When it comes to masking, 80% of Americans say they “rarely or never” wear a mask in shops and companies, though about 40% would carry them in crowded settings if they felt sick.
Forty percent of Americans believe that the United States will deal with a future health crisis better than it has dealt with Covid. By comparison, 16% think the country will do worse and 43% said the answer will be about the same, the survey found.
Mental health -effect
Dr. Michael Aziz, a board certified at a doctor at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York, noted the dramatic effect that Covid had on mental health.
“Studies have observed a higher prevalence of psychopathological symptoms during the pandemic for people with pre-pandemic mental illness, suggesting that this group experienced a larger burden of the pandemic,” he told Fox News Digital.
80% of Americans say they “rarely or never” wear a mask in shops and companies.
Today, five years after the pandemic, Aziz said there were higher rates of depression, isolation and anxiety, something he sees “daily” with his own patients.
“There were also delayed learning skills in children who were in keys,” the doctor said. “Studies show that there were evolutionary abnormalities of both face masks and keys.”
Persistent health effects
Prior to the Covid pandemic, the prevalence of obesity was 11% and 15% between men and women respectively according to Aziz.
During the pandemic, it increased to 25.3% and 42.4% in men and women.
“People neglected their health more when it was supposed to be the opposite,” Aziz told Fox News Digital. “People tended to go for their physicists less often, with remote work to be the norm.”
“The government response to Covid has taught us that clear, consistent and continuous community commitment is essential.”
Some people reported Covid symptoms that lasted months or even years.
“This continued disease has often been called ‘Long Covid’ or ‘Post-Covid-19 Syndrome’,” Aziz said.
This condition is also sometimes called “Long-haul Covid” or “Post-Akuta consequences of SARS-Cov-2.”
“Studies show that there were evolutionary abnormalities of both face masks and keys.” (Reuters/Brendan McDermid/File photo)
“It is known that Covid-19 affects older people with higher mortality, but many young people in the United States have been hit and even died,” Aziz said. “The death rates in the United States were 10 times higher than Japan and South Korea.”
This means that aging occurs at a much younger age in the United States, according to Aziz.
“This is not a good thing for future health extensions, an impact on health care or future costs to take care of diseases related to age,” he added.
Lessons learned
Since the pandemic, Americans have largely learned that they are responsible for their own health and “making individual decisions on strengthening their immunity to infectious diseases,” according to Donna Petersen, a professor at the Public Health College at the University of South Florida.
“Individual responsibility for health is important, but collective responsibility for health benefits all of us, whether we choose to take individual responsibility or not,” she told Fox News Digital.
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Dr. Benjamin Barlow, general practitioner of US family care in Birmingham, Alabama, said the pandemic emphasized how quickly a new virus can spread and impact a community.
“The pandemic has alerted us to really paying attention to the global health scene and think about how explosions in other countries could affect us and start preparing,” he told Fox News Digital.
Covid-19 emphasized the need for medical providers to have access to a greater supply of personal protection equipment and better communication with test providers, one expert said. (Ritzau Scanpix/Nils Meilvang by Reuters/Files)
Covid-19 also emphasized the need for medical providers to have access to a larger supply of personal protection equipment and better communication with test providers, Barlow noted.
Dr. David Lenihan, general manager and co-founder of Tiber Health, a launch of global medical education in New York, shared his insights into how the country handled the pandemic.
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“The government response to Covid has taught us that clear, consistent and continuous community commitment is essential,” Lenihan, who is also the Director General of Ponce Health Sciences University, a medical school with campuses in Puerto -Rico, Missouri and the British Virgin Islands , told Fox News digital.
Since the pandemic, Americans have largely learned that they are responsible for their own health and “making individual decisions on strengthening their immunity to infectious diseases,” one doctor said. (Paul Hennessy/Sopa Pictures/LightTrocket by Getty Images)
“Such connectivity makes it easy that when there is a medical emergency case, enough people know that they can rely on the leadership of their leaders as well as government departments, organizations and facilities.”
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Another great lesson of the pandemic, according to Lenihan, is that it is essential for all medical experts and professionals to be “completely transparent” about which specific actions must be done for the benefit of society.
