{"id":234487,"date":"2022-08-18T13:56:33","date_gmt":"2022-08-18T11:56:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/how-the-pandemic-lockdown-in-south-africa-affected-mental-health\/"},"modified":"2022-08-18T13:56:33","modified_gmt":"2022-08-18T11:56:33","slug":"how-the-pandemic-lockdown-in-south-africa-affected-mental-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/how-the-pandemic-lockdown-in-south-africa-affected-mental-health\/","title":{"rendered":"How the pandemic lockdown in South Africa affected mental health"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

When SARS-CoV-2 emerged in South Africa, the country took measures to restrict people\u2019s movements and activities, to slow the spread of infections. There were various levels of restrictions<\/a>, the most severe being in place in March and April 2020. <\/p>\n

During this \u201chard lockdown\u201d, many people in South Africa really struggled. Not only did they have financial difficulties but the lockdown took an emotional and mental toll. The common themes, no matter where people lived, were feelings of anxiety, frustration and isolation. And as lockdown went on, those feelings got worse. <\/p>\n

In today\u2019s episode of Pasha, Sarita Pillay, a PhD student at the University of the Witwatersrand, and Miriam Maina, a research associate at the University of Manchester, take us through their research<\/a> on this lockdown toll.<\/p>\n

The researchers got their information from multimedia diary entries made during the \u201clevel 5\u201d lockdown. Their informants were people living in a variety of dwelling types, households and urban neighbourhoods. The entries recorded participants\u2019 daily experiences, concerns and feelings. <\/p>\n

Much of the anxiety people felt came from the fact that it was an unknown virus. People didn\u2019t know how it would affect them. They also worried about people breaking lockdown regulations. The economic impact of the lockdown was a concern; food security was a big issue.<\/p>\n

Feelings of isolation and frustration came from being alone. It didn\u2019t help that people were separated from their daily routines. <\/p>\n

\n

Photo<\/strong>
\n\u201cEmpty streets in the city of Cape Town during the lockdown for Covid-19\u201d by fivepointsix found on Shutterstock<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Music<\/strong>
\n\u201cHappy African Village\u201d by John Bartmann, found on FreeMusicArchive.org<\/a> licensed under CC0 1<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cBack To My Roots\u201d by John Bartmann, found on Freesound<\/a> licensed under Attribution 4.0 International License.<\/a><\/p>\n

Source: The Conversation<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When SARS-CoV-2 emerged in South Africa, the country took measures to restrict people\u2019s movements and activities, to slow the spread of infections. There were various levels of restrictions, the most severe being in place in March and April 2020. During this \u201chard lockdown\u201d, many people in South Africa really struggled. Not only did they have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":234488,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4584],"tags":[3257],"class_list":{"0":"post-234487","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-africa-news-2","8":"tag-mypr","9":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/how-the-pandemic-lockdown-in-south-africa-affected-mental-health.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234487\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/234488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}