After five years from the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, the memories of the time of social isolation and the sanitary emergency remain fresh in memory. More than 7 million people died around the world because of COVID-19. With over 700,000 life lost, Brazil was the second country with the largest number of deaths on the planet.
Rauza Barbosa’s husband is part of these numbers. “It was very suffering, we miss him to this day. It is difficult. The memories are there, ”shares the secretary, remembering the partner with whom he was married for 30 years.
Amid trauma, fear and uncertainty, Brazilians’ mental health was extremely impacted.
In 2021, a USP survey measured depression rates in 11 countries around the world. Brazil was first, followed by Ireland in second and the United States in third.
Events director and publicist Felipe Bittencourt Guedes went through a difficult time during quarantine: he had to deal with a depression. Felipe went on to therapy, but also adopted sport as a form of self -care.
“The therapy took care of my questions a lot, the race filled my voids,” he says. “My life has completely changed in terms of people management at work, stress, food, health, sleep. I can give a list of changes. I inserted the race in my daily life and in my life, ”he continues.
“Concern, fear, lack of contact, hug. The pandemic was a time when what was essentially human – contact, hug, kiss, affection, affection – was vetoed. Apart from all the other tragic themes we lived, everything we witnessed, this has consequences, ”explains psychoanalyst and psychologist Francisco Nogueira.
But unlike Felipe, a lot of people did not recover. According to an international report, the mental health of Brazilians in the postpandey is one of the worst in the world, behind almost 70 countries.
For Caio Matos, communities manager, who at the time of quarantine was married, was a complex period. “It had the challenge of sharing the same space all day, every day, for a long time,” he comments.
For those who have children, social isolation was even more delicate. THE Businesswoman Bruna Pereira Faria is the mother of two children comments on the impacts of the pandemic – especially for her son, who had the literacy process interrupted when schools closed.
“Not only he, but all his age have this difficulty of literacy. Who literate were the mothers. They were not at school, ”shares the businesswoman.
The pandemic forced humanity to adapt, create solutions, new methods – at home, at school, and in.
Historian Leandro Karnal analyzes that Covid-19 has aroused a sense of collectivity: “The pandemic, unlike the average of diseases, taught that it is no use being isolated in a condominium if the community around me does not vaccinate. We discovered a social and collective feeling. ”
Currently, the lives of Rauza, Felipe and Bruna, alongside their children, have adapted, but they are no longer the same. “The world always returns to normal. Always. After tragedies, wars, earthquakes and floods, but this normal is not the same as it was before, ”concludes Karnal.
