Those who developed COVID were also 34% more likely to have an opioid use disorder and 20% more likely to develop a substance use disorder involving drugs or alcohol.
“While we’ve all suffered during the pandemic, people who have had COVID-19 fare far worse mentally,” study researcher Dr. , a clinical epidemiologist at Washington University in St. Louis, said in a statement. “We need to acknowledge this reality and address these conditions now before they balloon into a much larger mental health crisis.”Researchers have been aware of the link between COVID and mental health struggles since the early days of the pandemic., for example, found that people who had COVID were twice as likely to develop depression, anxiety or dementia in the three months after their diagnosis.
“Our findings suggest a specific link between SARS-CoV-2 [the virus that causes COVID] and mental health disorders,” Al-Aly said. “We’re not certain why this is, but one of the leading hypotheses is that the virus can enter the brain and disturb cellular and neuron pathways, leading to mental health disorders.”
Notably, the new BMJ study found that people who’d been infected with the coronavirus were 80% more likely than those who weren’t to be experiencing symptoms ofResearchers are still trying to better understand exactly how COVID may cross
Jokes on it! I already had all that shit before Covid lol