Mental health issues among COVID-19 patients have apparently increased, particularly over anxieties about infecting colleagues and loved ones and how others will view them.

Operators of helplines say they have been inundated with calls from COVID-19 patients and uninfected people during the latest wave of infections and as the pandemic drags on.

A 45-year-old woman in Sapporo said her mental problems started while she was self-isolating at home after she tested positive in January.

“Solitude and anxiety beat me down mentally,” she said.

Although she has returned to her work as a life counselor for a nursing care facility in the Hokkaido capital, she said a blank still exists in her life.

She lives in a two-story house with her 55-year-old husband, a 16-year-old daughter and a 10-year-old son.

The woman also has a 19-year-old daughter who lives in a nearby city. After this daughter visited the family home, she tested positive for the virus on Jan. 11.

The mother’s infection was confirmed on Jan. 16, and she self-isolated in her upstairs room. None of the other family members tested positive.

She was in tears when she told her superior over the phone that she had been infected. She said she felt guilty for inconveniencing her understaffed workplace, which has fewer than 10 staff members, and was also concerned she might have transmitted the virus among the nearly 20 elderly citizens who use the facility.

Her symptoms were mild, including a runny nose and a slight fever.

But her gloominess increased in isolation. She feared that she would infect her family members and worried about how she would reintegrate into her workplace.

The woman returned to work after about two weeks.

“I have to work harder to make up for the leave I took,” she said she thinks nowadays. “It takes time to return to your previous state of mind and fit back into society. That’s what’s so troubling about COVID-19.”

HURTFUL SOCIAL MEDIA POSTS

A 27-year-old company employee who lives in Tokyo’s Adachi Ward said she got depressed by reading posts on social media while she was recuperating from COVID-19.

After testing positive in January, she wanted to recuperate in a hotel to prevent household transmission. But there were no vacancies so she had to stay at home.

She worried that she had infected her co-workers and could transmit the virus to her husband at home. The constant fears sometime made her weep.

The woman took a casual look at social media in hopes of relieving the sense of helplessness. Some of the posts she read made matters worse.

“If you get COVID now, you’ll probably only suffer mild symptoms,” she quoted one poster as saying.

“COVID is now just a common cold,” said another.

She said that such audacious comments about people like herself not only angered her but added to her physical and mental exhaustion.

She returned to work on Jan. 26 but is still afraid of the gazes of her colleagues every time she coughs, a symptom that has persisted. She is also growing more concerned about possible lingering aftereffects.

“You get so tired mentally while recuperating and even afterward,” the woman said. “COVID just shouldn’t be taken so lightly, like it’s a common cold.”

HELPLINES FLOODED

A COVID-19 mental health helpline operated by the Japanese Society of Certified Clinical Psychologists based in Tokyo’s Bunkyo Ward received 135 counseling requests in January, and staff could not handle all of the calls.

Some callers said they were afraid that becoming infected would lead to cold looks from acquaintances, society officials said. Others were worried about causing trouble for their workplaces if they were infected.

“(Looking at) groundless online criticism of infected people only amplifies your uneasiness,” a helpline official said. “More attention should be reserved for discussions with people whom you can trust, such as your family members and family doctors.”

The Minato Public Health Center in Tokyo’s Minato Ward also operates a mental health helpline dedicated to COVID-19 problems.

In January, it received more than three times the number of counseling requests that it had received in December.

Center officials said they have visited corporate offices, facilities for elderly people and other establishments to give instructions on infection control measures.

They said they found that some of those establishments do not allow infected employees to return to work immediately after they have completed their recuperation periods set by doctors and local authorities.

“Businesses and other establishments have the responsibility to eliminate lingering prejudice and to foster an environment that allows infected employees to return to work without being nervous once they have recuperated,” said Hirofumi Ninomiya, head of the health promotion division with the public health center.

“It is essential for those establishments to organize training sessions and use other means to repeatedly share accurate knowledge among their workers,” he said.