Prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 Infection Among Health Care Workers in a Tertiary Community Hospital

Abstract

Even though acute anxiety has received substantial rhetorical attention during the COVID-19 pandemic, to our knowledge it has not been subject to scientific inquiry until now.Although this study cannot confirm that any search was linked to a specific acute anxiety event or panic attack, it provides evidence of the collateral psychological effects stemming from COVID-19, and motivates several data-driven recommendations.First, surveillance should continue as changes during the pandemic may spark new increases in acute anxiety that necessitate a response.Second, in light of the pandemic, resource providers should better address acute anxiety.For instance, Illinois launched "Call4Calm," a hotline to help people cope with acute COVID-19 anxiety, and such programs could be expanded nationally.Third, more must be done to link those needing help with help.A "panic attack" Google query does not return any links to helplines, even though Google has pioneered the "OneBox" approach to mental health queries, highlighting life-saving results at the top of a user's search results (including suicide and addiction hotlines) rather than hoping searchers find actionable information by chance alone.The Google OneBox should be expanded to promote resources for acute anxiety, like SAMHSA's Disaster Distress Helpline, to meet potential increased demand during COVID-19 now and in the future.Time-sensitive decision-making during a pandemic underscores the importance of fostering an agile empirical approach that can continually monitor health threats, 6 including the ability to study an outcome without a priori anticipatory data collection.Mining internet searches may improve strategies to discover and subsequently address the collateral mental health consequences of COVID-19.

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