Continue to wear the mask, despite the deletion since Monday May 16 of the obligation to wear it in transport, many people indeed continue to protect themselves with a mask in shops and in transport. Especially since scientists warn that this lifting of the obligation may only be temporary, because the epidemic can resume.
franceinfo: Can this alternation of contradictory discourse have psychological effects on us?
Claude Halmos: Contradictory discourses about Covid have become so common that we tend to trivialize them, but they weigh on us much more than we imagine. We all live – and this is normal – waiting to finally be able to combine the Covid period with the past; and this makes us particularly vulnerable to statements that can either give us hope or, on the contrary, take us away from it.
So when the government seems to be saying “no more Covid” but the scientists correct it by saying it may only be temporary, it’s as if some are telling us that we are definitely cured, and the others, only in remission . It is psychologically very taxing.
How ?
These permanent contradictions generate a feeling of uncertainty which is very destructive. The uncertainties have been there since the start of the pandemic: will we escape the virus? Will we find a vaccine, resist economic difficulties? Etc. But, at that time, we felt them clearly and above all, we still had one certainty (which we did not formulate clearly, but who supported us): this pandemic could not last forever, it would necessarily have an end.
And then, varying by varying, this certainty diminished, to the point that, as time passed, the very idea of certainty began to waver, and we entered a time when we is no longer sure of anything; a kind of time of uncertainty.
An uncertainty that is all the greater in that it is not linked only to the Covid, but also – and especially since the war in Ukraine – to the future in all areas: the economy, energy, climate… It is as destabilizing for the psyche as it would be for the body to have to walk constantly on an unstable surface.
How can we resist this?
If you can’t get rid of a problem, the only solution is to agree to look it in the face, and learn to live, as best (or as little badly) as possible, with it.
The state of the world around us weighs on our psyche, and it weighs, like pollution on our organism, without us feeling it consciously.
It is therefore necessary, to protect ourselves, to realize that this anxiety-provoking uncertainty can today be added to our personal problems, make them seem heavier than they are, and therefore weaken us to face them. So…vigilance, and caution!