05/14/20 05/14/20 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from new york c city, the epicenter of t the pandemic,hiss is democracy now! >> there are people who in this degree of isolation are going to escalate into depression. some of those people will commit suicide because people commit suicide in desperate times and under desperate circumstances. that means effectively we will have people dying of covid who don't even have it.. amy: is the cororonavirus pandec generatiting a mental illness crisis? millions face isolation, poverty

and anxiety. we will speak with psychology professor and writer andrew solomon, as the united natioions calls onon governments to put into health front anan c centern the response t to the crisisis. >> nationally in a few countries increase of stress of 35% of the population in china, 60% in iran, 30% in the u.s.. amy: thahan we look at the tremendous emotionalal toll the coronavirurus when those a are forced to battle it alone. >> there ia a tremendodous growh in r recognition of the urgencyf treating human suffering and communicating effectively withh patients and families. amy: we will speak with renowned

palliative care specialist dr. diane meier. all that and more, coming up. welcome to democracy now!, democracynow.org, the quarantine report. i'm amy goodman. the world health organization warned wednesday thehe novel coronavirus may never go away -- as t the global death toll from nearsvid-19 pandemic 300,000. dr. mike ryan, executive director of the who's health emergencies program, said unless an effective vaccine is developed and distributed globally, , covid-19 could join otother diseases like aids and influenza as a permanent fixture in the human population. >> this virus may become just another endemic virus in our communities. this virus may never go away. hiv has never gone away, but we have come to terms with that iris and we have found the therapies in the prevention methods. once theed natitions

coronavirus pandemic is generating a mental illness crisis is millioions face isolation, poverty, and anxiety. domestic violence is rising, health workers are reporting an increase for need for psychological support stotop afr headlines, we will speak with psychology professor and writer andrew solomon as well a as palliative care specialist dr. diane meier. on capitol h hill, ousted u.s.. vaccine chief dr. rick k brights tetestifying today before the house committee onnenergy and cocommerce. in prepared remarks submitted to congress, dr. bright warns -- "without clear planning and implementation of the steps that i and other experts have outlined, 2020 will be darkest winter in modern history." in a whistleblower complaint, dr. bright says he was forced out of his job at the department of health and human services after he resisted the trump administration's promotion of untested treatments for covid-19. "the daily beast" reports president trump is pressuring officials at the centers for

disease control and prevention to change their covid-19 death toll methodology in order to produce a lower figure. trump's push directly contradicts the views of trump's top infectious disease expert, dr. anthony fauci, who told congressss the death tololl is tuesdaday likely higher than an official tally kept by johns hopkins researchers. now at m more than 84,000 u.s. deaths.. >> most of us feel the number of deaths are likely higher than that number. amy: on wednesday, president trump criticized dr. fauci over his congressional testimony, questioning fauci's assertion that school chchildren might not be safe returning to classrooms in the fall. pres. trump: he wants to play all sides of the equation. i was surprised by his ananswer, --ually,, because it is just to me it is not an acceceptable

answer, espspecially when it cos to school. amy: wisconsin's supreme e court has s struck down a remain-at-he order backed by democratic governor tony evers, throwing efforts to stem the spread of covid-19 in wisconsin into chaos. the court's conservative majority ruled 4-to-3 declaring governor evers's "safer at home" policy unlawful, invalid, and unenforceable. within hours, some wisconsin bars reopened and filled with patrons for the first time since nonessential businesses were closed on march 25. wisconsin's lieutenant governor mandela barnes tweeted in response -- "disappointed but not surprised. they put lives at risk by forcing an election, of course they were going to double down. it's like no lives matter. this is bad," lieutenant governor barnes tweeted. officials in wisconsin's two most-populous areas, milwaukee and dane county, say they will continue t to enforce reremain-at-t-home ordrders loc. the labor departrtment releases

its latest unemployment numbers this morning, with economists predicting another 2.5 million initial jobless claims were filed over the week ending may 9. the coronavirus crisis has so far pushed about 28 million u.s. workers to file for unemployment benefits. on wednesday, federal reserve chair jerome powell warned the u.s. economy may face an extended crisis unless congress provides a massive new round off economic relief.f. >> the scope and speed of this downturn a are without modern precedent. significantly worse than any recession since world war ii. we are seeing a severe decline in economic activity and employment, and already the job gains of the last decade have been erased. amy: at the white house, president donald trump said wednesday a $3 trillion coronavirus relief package introduced by house speaker nancy pelosi is dead on arrival. trump cited an election provision that would require states to provide at least 15 consecutive days of early voting.

pres. trump: the problem with mln ballads is subject to mail-dous corruption -- is subject to tremendous corruption. what nancy pelosi is putting g has a lot to do with elections and we're not going to lose eleltions becacause of that. amy: president trump himself vote by mail. on c capitol hill, fririda republicican senator rick scott said wednesday he opposes the key provision of democrats proposed coronavirus relief bill , $120 in aid to state, local, and tribal governments hard-hit by the pandemic. >> we are bailing out liberal politician's who cannot live within their means and now we are asking floridians to pay for the incncompetency of govovernos like andrew cuomo. amy: some e progressive advocacy groups are calling on lawmakers to vote down the house coronavirus relief bill, saying it doesn't go far enough. in response, congressional progressive caucus cochairs pramila jayapal and mark pocan have called on speaker pelosi to

delay a planned friday vote until next week. progressives are demanding amendments including paycheck guarantees for workers and an expansion of health insurance to ththe unemployed.. in new mexico, new data shows half of those who have died of covid 19 are native american, even though the only makeup 11% of the states population. this comes has nearly 60% of people testing positive for the coronavirus in new mexico are also indigenous. in new orleans, sanitation workers are entering their second week of strike, demanding better working conditions, daily personal protective equipment such as gloves and facemasks, raging wagers to $15 p per hour, and providing weekly hazard p py of $150. in china, health officials are planning to test all 11 million residents of the city of wuhan for the novel coronavirus by the end of next week after at least six new coronavirus cases were confirmed over the last two days. china had reported no new cases in over a month in wuhan, where

the novel coronavirus appears to have emerged late last year. in new zealand, authorities have reopened shopping malls, restaurants, movie theaters, gyms and hair salons, after reporting no newew cases of coronavirus for the last two days. new zealand's early and aggressive action appears to have not just contained the virus but eliminated it from the island nation of 5 million people, where just 21 people have died of covid-19. in mexico, dozens s of nurses in mexico city and the city of texcoco held a protest wednesday demanding the government provide them with personal protective equipment. this is one of the nurses. been givennot personal protective equipment, masks, or in 95 masks, goggles. we are purchasing all of our equipment. it is quite expensive and they do not last for more than a week and we cannot have those expenses and we cannot continue to risk ourselves with using the bad quality equipment we are being given here. amy: mexico's health ministry

confirmed nearly 300 new deaths. memexico now has ovever 40,000 n caseses and an officiaial deathl of over 4200. mexico is preparing to slowlwly rereopen its economy begininniny 18. paul manafort was released from home. and will remain his heal and age m made him especially vulnerable. democratic conessmembe deb aland ofew mexico and r ruled grgrijva of arona arar urggg the trtrp administration to release native american ghts acvist leord p peler froro federa prison and ant him clemcy.. he is a former member of the erericanndiaian vementnt was convted of killing two fbi agents during a shootout on south dakota's pine ridge indian reservation in 1975. he has long maintained his innocence. leonard peltier suffers from heart problems and diabetes. his supporters point to a federal bureau of prisons program allowing the early release of elderly prisoners and people with underlying health

conditions during the pandemic. so far only 2500 federal prisoners have been released to home confinement, even though covid-19 has already caused the death of at least 340 people in jails and prisons around the united states. federal agents with a search warrant on wednesday seized the cell phone of u.s. senator richard burr, chair of the senate intelligence committee. the north carolina republican is under scrutiny for selling as much as $1.7 million worth of stock after receiving privileged briefings about the threat of the coronavirus before the pandemic led markets to crash. it is in apparent violation of the stock act, the stock trading on congressional knowlwledge ac. yahoo! news rereports the justie departmement has a accidentallly discsclosed the naname of a saui diplomat suspected of helping two al-qaeda 9/11 hijackers. the identity of f musaed ahmed al-jarrah was revealed in a declaration by a senior fbi official in response to a lawsuit filed by survivors and families of 9/11 victims who

accuse saudi arabia's government of involvement in the attacks. the revelation comes after a two-year intense battle by the justice department to keep the naname under wraps. in california, republican mike garcia has won a special election for a congressional district north of los angeles. garcia defeated christy smith, a democrat who opposes medicare for all and california's attempts to adopt a single payer healthcare system. the district had been held by a progressive democrat and supporter of medicare for all, first-term congressmember katie hill. she resigned from congress last october after redstate.org and the daily mail published naked images of her without her consent and exposed her affair with a campaign aide. and costa rica said to issue its first same-sex marriage registrations in late e may, 18 months afterer the costa rican' coconstitutional court legalized -- 18 months, but it's unclear

whether it will gain enough support. costa rica would be the first central american country to legalize marriage equality. correction to figigure cited in earlier headline, the numbeber f initial and of mclean's filed since the pandemic began in early march is expected to top 35 million. and those arare some of the headlines. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the quarantine report. when we e come back, the united natitions warns the coronavirus pandemicic generatining a mental illness crisisis. we will speak with psychology professor r and author r andrew solomon and with renowned palliative specialalist diane meierr about, well, what happens when patients die in the hospital and their family members cannot be there to say goodbye. stay with us. ♪ [music break]

amy: singing a song about the 486 anniversary of their village in peru. in miami and two are in peru. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the ququarante report. i'm amy goodman in new york city, the epicenter ofof the pandndemic, along with my co-hot nermeen shaikh, who joins us from her home to prevent community spread come also here in new york city. hi, nermeen! nermeen: good morning. welcome to all of our listeners and viewers from around the country and around the world.

amy: todayay the united natitios warned the cororonavirus pandemc is generating a mental illness crisis as millions facee isolation, poverty, and anxiety. domestic violence is rising and health workers are reporting an increased need for psychological support. the director of the world health organization's mental health department, devora kestel, pushed for governments to put thee issue front and center in their response to the crisis. >> we have seen in the past that similar cases have economic crisis have increased the number of people with dedental health. suicide, due to the mental health conondition of substancababuse, for example. example, in a feww countries,s, s swing in anan increase of the prevalalence of stress of 35% of the population

in china, 60% in iriran, 45% in the u.s. some were done in canada where 47% o of health-care workers reported needs for psychological support. 47%, almost half of them. in china, we have different figures for depression, 50%. anxiety, 4545%. insomnia, , %. 42% -- sorry, 76% . the numbers are there and these are just preliminary that we know. amy: in the united states, tens of millions of americans say the coronavirus is harming their mental health. with more than a quarter of americans polled by the kaiser family foundation reporting "major impact."

federal emergency hotline for people in emotional distress registered more than 1000% increase in compared with the april same time last year. calls to suicide hotline's are massively up. well, for more on the psychological effects of the pandemic and thehe isolationon d economic crisis resulting from the globalal lockdown, we are joined by andrew solomon, a professor of clinical medical psychology at columbia university and an award-winning author of several books on mental illness, including his widely acclaimed memoir, "the noonday demon: an atlas of depression." his best-selling book. "far from the tree: parents, children, and the search for identity," was awarded the national book critics circle award for nonfiction. he wrote a recent piece for "the new york times" headlined "when the pandemic leaves us alone, anxious and depressed."

andrew solomon, welcome toto democracy now! it is great to have you with us. if you could start off by talking about this double crisis that p people are experiencing, not t only in the unitited stat, but around the world?? >> it is a p pleasure to be here and listening to the headlineses as you read earlier, it would be difficult t not to be in c csisf one kind or another. when i talk about a double crisis, i'm talking about these two problemsms. one of which is that we are all afraid of the virus itstself. it feels like the angel of death is waiaiting outside o our front door. it feels like people we know are dying. fofor many of us, going i into economic crisis. there's s a great deal goining n with us specififically around de virus. the other piece ofof the crisiss the response to the virus is primarily to shelter at home and to shelter with a v very limited group of f people or alone.

and the isolation is taking a terrible toll. human beings are terriblble additionaliness has adverse metal cononsequences. nermeen: andrew solomon, could you talk about that she mentioned the fact that as this mental healtlth cririsis unfoldn the u.s., there are certain people whoho are less likely to access care, poor communities come across the u.s.. could you explain why that is? and this is hahappenining as may local communinity mental health centers are facing many financial pressures as a result of which there cutting programs to help people in theheir commmmunities. >> absolutely. in genereral, people who a are s econonomically privileged d ares likely t to have theirir mental healalth problems diagnosed or

treaeated. less likely to have themem diagnosed because the basis for didiagnosing depression is often that you feel reallyly terrible despite e having quite a pleleat life.. and if you have a very actively ununpleasant life and d you feel terrlele all the time, weree ununlikely t to recognize t thae way you feel m may be the resust of or a symptom of m menl illness, and instead you will think it is merely commensurate with your r circumstances. even foror poor peoplele were ae to get a diagnososis, the lack f acaccess to mentntal health h ce remamains shockcking in the unid states. there was a menl healthth parity act t that when in somome yearso that is full of loopholes, swiss cheese.. peopople don't t have [indiscernible] so-called higher-q-quality doctors in teacaching hospitals and so on e lilikely in most instancnces too untreateted. ththey can calall hotline some f the time. they can patch togogether little bits of reresponse, but theyey'e not gogoing to get the kind ofof

steady, focused treatmentnt that might allow them to come away from their m mental illness andd emerge better able to contend with the very real chchallenges they face in the wld.. talken: andw, could y you about in this context, the effect of the economic crisis on the 2008alth? d during financial crisis, a study fofoud that for every percentntage poit increase in the unemployment rate, there was about a 1.6% increase in the susuicidee rate. nonow we're lookiking at tens of millions, , almost 30 millionn u.s., anemployed in the place, incidentally, which has very high rates of suiuicide alreadady. i mean, rates around the world have generally been coming down, but in the u.s., they have steadily beenn increasining sine 1999. >> yes.

the rate of suicide is shocking anand it remainsns shockingly hh in the united states. inin terms of the finanancial crisis, it is difficult t to be dealing with the two primary components that affect everyone, which are fear of gegetting sisk or losing g people you love, ana problem of nenegotiatating isolation. but when you a add to ththose to already exisisting difficulties, financial collapse and real income you are really in a despererate place. ththere are these the huge numbs of people who have no idea whetetr they're goingng to be ae to feed themselves over a longer-term period of time. the jobs that havave been lost r not all going to r return step - rereturn t the minute e economomy reopens. you have a a huge number of peoe who are facing not only thehe kd of f fantastical concerns of the --us itself and not only looking atat being deprived and

possssibly having lives in which they wilill never be ablee to afford anything g again. of course,e, we don't have a sasafety n net in the u united . that is part of why the financncial crisis g generated o mumuch trouble i in such high rs of depresession, anand even of suicidides. i should say r relation to inin suicides, there's a a tendency o think that physical health h is the urgent p problem right n a d thatat mental health is a sort f luxuryry. actually, there are many people whwho because they h have poor mental health will b be driven either to desperation t that thy continue to esescalate or to acs of suicide. i i have already heard about people who a already had some degree of mentntal illness who have foundnd the isolation so difffficult and thehey fear so overwhelming, that thehey have n fact e ended up killining themseselves. thatat increasing rate o of suie reflects a very stark reality. and for peopople who a are lookg alalso at financial ruin, the temptations of suicide are terribly proximate. amy: andndrew, you wririte "when

everyone else is experiencing depression and anxiety, real clinical mental illness can get erased." if you can explain what you mean and following up on your point about suicide, so let's talk about what can be done right now. what are you advisining? what are y you c counseling? areell, i wouldld say there essentially fourur responses too the current t situation. someme people are very emotionay robust and seem to b be able t o handle i it relatively graceful. some people are having a b bit more trorouble andnd required wi ththink of as psychiatric first date. theyey need toto regulate their eating and sleleep and n need no becomeme complete news junkies 4 hours a day. they need in a variety of f othr ways to moderate their behavior. then t tre are people e who have never exexperienced mentalal ils befofore who arereeing pushehedp into mental illness at this moment by the e experiences thty have.

and ththere we havee to look ate very tricky thing, w which is hw dodo we seseparate rational anxy and distress frfrom a clinicall condition? the line can be very b blurry ad it varieies from person to pere. fifinally, we e have the peoeopo already y had mentntal illness o are nowow developoping what i he called and many clinicians call a double depepression, in which underlying d depression and anxixiety are suddenly now escalated to the complete c cris popoint, the point w where peope are contememating suicidide kind to the point where people are unable to o function, to thehe t where people w who have lost t r jobs are u unable to fill o oute paperwork to get benefits ththat they may require. those are people who havee got rereally serusus and problematil mental illllness. in terms of advice, the best advice is dedepression is, on te one hanand, a trorouble and overwhelmiming problem. on the other hand,d, quite a treatable problem. if you're able to access mental healalth care, you should do it and undnderstand d it is not a

failure in it doeses not mean yu collapsed undululand it doeoes't mean you cannot deal witith strs that other people can n deal wi. if you're suffering and i in pa, there are treatments availablele and you should takeke advantagef themem. but that goes back to our earlrlier point, which is theree are people in a a good posositio take advantatage of the mental illness challenges by goioing ta good t teaching hospital, byby fifinding a good doctorand by takiking medication and engngagg in pchchotherapypy. and thehere were a lot t of peoe for r whom those things feel unavailable. the prospect of f trying to accs them, , even for people whoo theoretically should have some levell o of care, is completely overwhelming. we need very much to try to support those populations. nermeen: andrew solomon, one of the reasons that people e don't access mental hehealth care even when they y need it is that thte is still an enormous stigma attached to mental illness. you mentioned earlilier that

mental healthh care is viewed as a luxury and physical health is privilileged over mental health, despite the obviously oftften lethal effect of mental illness. so could y you talk about thata, the stigmama attached to mental illness? anand also, in fact, some healh care clinicians have said that this pandemic, because it i is prododucing such widespread menl suffering, may actually reducee the stigma attached to mental illness. yourur response? > well,l, if we reduce the sa attached t to mental illnessss,t willll be the elusive silver lining in the h heous cloud we find ourselveses in right now. i am v very hopeful ththat thaty haenen. the statistics that you write out at the beginnining, someme % ofofmericans a are now reporting mental health complaiaints, i think is i indicative.

if 40% of americans are experiencing this, i it is difficult for it t to remain stigigmatized in the way you did when it wawas a lower percenent. but thee percentage hahas always been higheher than people belie. i sometimes call depressision te family secret that everybody has. i have found over ththe years since i have started working on depressioion, people willll say, don't you find that people are laughing behind yourur back? don't you worry about the self exposure thahat was involved in writin about your r own exexperience with depressision? i nearly universal experience is that everyone i meet says, i hahave been so worried about myy wife, she'e's having a really difficult time.e. or, my brother did such andd such. or i i myself have beeeen in treatmenent but i'm not sure i'm getting ththe right treaeatment. this is rereally all over r the place and itit touches everyone. now attaches more than everyone. in many countrtries, there have been real moves to respopond to that.. even in chchina, which we don't think of as progressive on

mental health issues, when a virus surfaced in wuhan, the governmentnt moved enormous numbers of mental health professionals to move on to try to help people get through that trial and that traumuma was stuk in the united states, we kept focusingng on school closusuresd all of these other things that are terribly important but without giving any federal attentionn whatsoever to the mental health crisis. i think that reinforces the stigma.. if we had a president who was able to stand up and say,y, this is affecting almost everyone one way y or another, directly or indirectctly, it is an a absolue crisis that requirires attention and response that the stigma would evaporate e relatively rapidldly because of t the sheer population numbers. as long as t the governmenent continueues to ignore this problem, even though some state governments s are responding too it, i think the stigma rememains and pepeople have a sense of failurure. i often say to people,, in n the first place, you s should get treatment. if you don't, or condition might escalate and y you might end up

killing yourself.. inin the second place, should gt treatment because right now you're 37 years old a and you're never going toto be 37 years old agagn. if youou use out the next y year feeling terrrribly depressed, you're going too have years and years ahahead of you of having o negogotiate the aftermath of tht depressive episode and havingg a possibly recurrent depression and you're going to have missed the year whehen you're 37 and yu really neededed your reresourceo deal with isolalation and to del with losing g people you love ad to deal wiwith financial crisis, and we can't afford not to be at r strongest and best as we deal with those very real and immediate problems. amy: we are talking to andrew solomon, professor of clinical medical psychology at columbia university, award-winning author of the books "far from the tree: parents, children, and the search for identity." in a moment, we will talk about children dealing with the pandemic stop and also his book

"the noonday demon an atlas of depression." :i would ask about the doctor who took her own life, type er doctor who treated coronavirus patients in new york, died by suicide. dr. lorna breen was the medical director of the emergency department at new york-presbyterian allen hospital but had been staying with her family in virginia at the time of her death. she herself had contracted the coronavirus and had to leave her position to recover from the illness. her family blames her job for her death. her father in an interview, she described harrowing scenes from the hospital. said, "make sure she's praised as a hero, because she was," her father, dr. philip breen, said in an interview, adding, "she's a casualty just as much as anyone else who has died."

andrew solomon, can you comment on her death and the pressure that health care professionals are facing right now? you refer to this saying, we're used to dealing with sick peoeoe and sing tererrible t things too talklking about doctors and nurses, but what is devastating with covid is the sheer volume. it is likeke drinking fromom a poisonous fire hydrant." >> well, i think the first thing to say is that she was a hero and thatat we shouould all be breathless with admimiration for somemebody who is wiwillintoto k so h hard in this area in which relatively speakining there is ststill so few things and who ws willing to put herself on the line untntil she got t to the pt that despairir. obviously, the despair itself is catastrophic and terrifying. mental health professionals are undeder pressure -- actually seeingng people die. people become doctors by largrge

because they want to help people and make them better. and here come e these vast numbs of people for whom they can do virtually nothining. instead of making g them better, there's an effort to do some kind of palliatitive care as you watch them die in front of you anand thehen pack them into big refrigererated trucks.s. the stress is enormous. i would emphasize there's a lot of stress for people like grocery store workers. there is a lot of stress for people who are in any of t the areas in n which there's a lolof exposusure. in the stress is partly vulnlnerability y to the illnes. then i wouould add another laye, whwhich we have not talked abou, which is we don't reallyly undederstand the fulull functiog of the coronavirus. there are people who have beenn dying ofof strokeses that appeao be related to coronavirus.. i would suggest it is p possible it also can have an effect, in some people, a mental health by having a direct organic effect on the brain. it is very nice everyone e opens the windows and bangs pots and

pans in appppreciation of health-care workers in new york and many otherer cities gathered around the country. it is important those people be acknowledged. but acknowledging them does not take away from the desperation you feel having something that is so widespread and so untreatable.e. andrew, many people hahave said that -- warned that just like hospitals were completely overwhelmed at the start of this pandemic, the memental health industry will ao bebe overwhelmed by the eminentt mentalal heaealth crisis. could you talk about the levels of c care d different communitin the u.s. can access, and what some of the diffificulties arare withccesessing mental health care even for those who want to seek i it who haveve insurance,o are in plalaces where memental health care is readadily

acceptable, but still they are not able to afford it or get to it? so many there arere letters to the problem of mental health carare in the united stas that existed before we got to this pandemic. now, of course, they're working didish lookingng worse. field ofe i in the mental healtltoften dealal witih ininsurance that essentitially rerequires thahat t ty see fiver six patients an hour. you can't understand what 70's mental healtlth problems are in0 minutes, much less figure out an appropriatate treatment. there so manany people who comen saying t ty have a m mental heah complaint, giviven medication, d sent home without any further conversation. the reasonon mental health h excavated isis because of loneliness and fear of the illness and for alall of those other reasons you need to be

able to interact and exchange points of view about them and have someone who can sort out for you what c constitutes ann ererotic response e and what constitutess s seriousus -- neuc response a and what constitutes serious mental illneness. it is partly that we don't have enough peoplple in the field. it is parartly that it is difficult to acaccess the people inin the fieldld even if y you'e in a position which your insurance covers it. it is also that you have e to be able t to self diagnose and be willing despite the stigma that we talked about t a moment ago,o go in and say, "i have a serious mental health h problem and i wt to figure out how i can get better." making that assertion is already very difficult. of course, thehey'rellll of the pepeople who even if they could make that assertion, because of insurance problems and unemployment and so on, are not able to access mental health care at all.l. amy: andrew solomon, you have wawarned that people with

pre-existing pulmonary illnesses dropopdead of the t thing. people w with previously existig mood disorders will die of it, and lessly in a slower obvious way. if you could address this and also your own experience, which you so painfully, honestly, authentically deal with in so mumuch of your writing, your own experiences with deprpression. >> well, people dropping dead of it are all of the people who are dying because they end up mmmmitting suicide, likeke the brave doctctor we jujust spoke about, t the people werere dying because when you'rere depressed your indian system is depressed as well -- your immmmune systems dedepressed as what peoplele bee more vulnerable to the virus. people were dying because when you have s severe depressision r ability to take care of yoyoursf dwindles and peoplple end up beg careless andnd going out withoua mask and standing too close to other people and so on and so forth.

the e people who develop touch deprivation, the abbasid of physical contact with other human beings pushes them over the edge and leads thehem to damagingng behavior. therere are many ways in which this mental health problem becomes a serious one that can lelead to destroyed lives and en to people dying. people dying of the virus who don't even have it. my own expererience historically is i in 1994, a f few years afty mother died,d, i develeloped a y acute and serious depression. i did not recognize it for whwht it was at the time. of ththeetermined becacause stigma,, i suppopose, that i wod dedeal with thisis on my own. i eventualally reached t the pot at which i was almost unable to do anything. i was lying in bed unable to even pick up the phone and ask for help. then i finally realized that something had to be done. so i went and i souought treatment.t. lilike 70 other peopople, i sout

treaeatment and ththought, ok,'m fine, i went of the treatment and plummeted again. i went back on treatment. depressionon is a cyclical illness. once you acquire it, you're likely t to have episodedes o od over a again. what i i would always say isis e opposite o of depression is not happppiness, b but vitality. it was vitality that i l lost in those moments. it wasn't that i i felt sad all the timeme, though i i did feees bad for r a variety of reasons. it was that i no l longer had te babasic energy to gogo a about e business of my life.e. i did not feelel like i could gt upup, like i could cope e with things, like i could go out, like i could talk to people. i found myself withdrawing more and more and m more into the painful solitude of mymy own disturbed minind. and that tends to be what ppppens in d depression. in this crisis, i think a lot of peopople start off havaving rational, reasonable fear and distress abobout what is going , and then h he gets to o e popoit

where e they a are paralyzed. theyey are notot making themsels meals. they either do o nothing but slp or they can't sleep at all. they do noththing but eat or thy can't eat at all. they can't bebear the idea ofof exercise, they stop even limited means of communication we have iphone or zoom or whwhatever peoplele are using, anand withdw socially from theirr surroundings. those would d be some of the sis for which one could recognize the beginning of depression. if you feel you're not funcnctioning well bececause ofe way you feel,, very well be depresession stop if you just fl upset come, very well be a rational response to this tragic time. before we concludude, i would like to ask about the impapact of this pandemic on chchildren.. initially, i it seems thehere ws possibly one savingg grace, whih is that children did not appear to be vulnerable. but that has changed with the recent deaths of 3m childldren

righght here in new york -- thre young children riright here in w york. apart from the illness itself, what has a broader effect of the pandemic and the resulting lockdown, i isolation, it etctcn children of different ages? isthe effect t on children enormous. my husband and i have a son who is 11 who is here with us in our quarantined that we are liviving in. i am very muchch stressed by t e fact t the contitinuity of miner my husband's lies and verbal communication. if we are able to see a and talk to our f friends on zoom anand sewhere, w we can more oleless feelel that we are keepeping in touch. the fabric of f children''s frfriendships is in doing things togetherer. children who are depririved of e ability to do things together don't have thahat much to say to one another when they call in another so t there friendships

themselves lose some of f their fabric and substance. the children are therefore missing g not only the educatiol of school, but t the situation f scschool. i think if we do ththis foror a year, and my son was 10 when we starteted, ends upup being near2 of the timime we are finisished, what are the modes of dedevelopmenent he will have mi? in addition toto that, children are not stupid and they can understand the situation is unnatural and bizarre. someme children are able to puta good face on it and some are not. it is enormomous strtress for tm to recognize i it. e biggestt resest on childrenn often is the e condition of ther parents. therere was a study done some years ago in which a resesearchr tried to determine what the best way was to treat childhood depressionon. after trying 15 different things in a very large controlled study, the thing that was most effective in helping children was to treat their mothers.

and so the mental illness of parents bleeds over into the mental illness of children, even just the stress and distress of parents bleeds over into the condition of children. and now with this news that the disease may impact be fatal for children or may make them very, very sick country to what we previously heard, we have to isolate our children more. we have to take more precaution. and we are less likely to get back to school and less likely to get back to anything like what our children have come to experience as normal life, and that is a very toxic situation psychologically as well as physically. amy: andrew solomon, thank you for spending this time with us, author, professor of clinical medical psychology at columbia ununiversityty. we will link to your pieces in "the new york times" headlined "when the pandemic leaves us alone, anxious and depressed." i did a guardian and 1-8000 273-8 255 is the suicide

hotline. this is dedemocracy y now! breakingng news, the unemploymet figures s are out, nearly 3 million u.s. workers a apply for unememployment last week with me than 36 millilion total applications in two months. that is an underestimate of those whwho are ununemployed. when we come back, we look at the tremendous emotional t toll the coronavirus is takaking on families when loved ones are forced to battle covidid alolonn hospitals or at home. stay witusus. ♪ [mumusibreak]

amy: t this is democraracy now!, democracynow.org, the quarantine report. i am amy goodman with nermeen shaikh. we are broadcasting from the epicenter of the pandemic. as we turn now t to look at the tremendous emotional toll the coronavirus is taking on

families when loved ones are foforced to battle covid alone n hospitalals or a at home. the virus is s so contagious tht hospitals have been forced to ban family members from tending to their sick relatives in person, often making health care workers and the staff of the hospital the only human contact for dying patients who are relying on technology to say their goodbyes. these extraordinary circumstances have led to a surge in the need for palliative care specialists -- doctors and nurses who focus on rerelieving pain and supporting patients and their families who are facing such severe, chronic, or fatal illness. for more on palliative care, we go to carmel, new york, where we're joined by diane meier, director of the center to advance palliative care and a professor of geriatrics and palliative medicine atat the icn school of f medicine at mount sinai. she helped start a 24-hourur palliative care hotline for

covid-1919 patients in new york city that serveded nearly 900 people in a four week period. professor meier, welcome to democracy now! why don't we start offff with tt big word, with this term palliative care, what it means, and what people all over have that younderstand is have a patient whoho is in the hospital or r at homome and thee dying alone.. >> thank y you, amy. it is great to see you again. palliative care, what is it?t? i'm so glalad you starteted with that questioion because that remains the $64 question in ourr field and that is that mostst people, including health profofsionals, don''t really knw what it is. it i ivery simplple. palliative care is the new medical and nursing specicialty, anand by new i meaean it is abo0 years old, that is focused on the relief of suffering and the

best possible quality of life for people living with a a seris illness. you catell frorom what i said that it is not solely about the dying. it is about people living with serious illness.s. for example, , you have dementia, like alzheimimer's disease, or e emphysema and difficulty breathingng o or heat problemsms or your on dialysis, those are all serious illnesses with which people can live a a often dodo live for many years. but those diseases p pe a huge burdenen on ability to function, on symptom-burden, and on our loved ones, our family caregiversrs who help us getet throrough ththis. the fifield of palliatative cars about trying to reduce that burden and reduce that suffering, not only on patients themselves, but also thohose who care for them. nermeen: dr. meier, couldd you

talk about what the effects of this virus have beeeen on palliative care and end-of-life care? a an this virus has had enormous impacact on the field f palliative care in two main ways. the first is that it is obvious to everyone, our fellow health professionals as well as members of the general public, that there is a grereat deal of susuffering.g. n not just as andrew solomon depression,y, fear, but also physical suffering like shortness, profound fatigue, recurrent t very high fevers, ad the symptotoms that go along wih that. and if youou get to the hospita, if you're sick enouough to need the hospital, are havingg enough breathing difficulty that it is a posossibility you will need to

be on a breathing machine, once you set foot in the hospital or aree wheheeled into the e hospi, yoyour family is sent home.e. ththey arere sent home because e are not allowing any visitors in the hospital. and part of that is to try to reduce risk to those visitorors since we have so many covid-positive patients in the hospital, and part of it is to reduce risk to people working in the hospital of asymptomatic family members coming in who o e carrying the virus but don't know it because they still feel ok. circumstances, the one thing we can rely on, the one thing that is the silver lining of the experience is our relationship with our family and our other loved ones, is the human connection that grows and strengthens in a period of serious illness. in this pandemic, that is the

one thing that you're not allowed to have. i am very concerned, as andrew solomon is, that the mental health consequences of people being isolated just when they most need each other, just whehn they most neeeed their families and their families need them,m,s going to be enormous. amy: if you can talk a about wht happens and d what you feel nees to happen in the hospital when the patient is dying, their beloved family wants s to be wih them but can't -- both that situation and what is the best way to d deal with that? and also, the effect on the health care professionals who are so overwhelmed -- whether we're talking doctors, nurses, the staff of the hosostals -- alreadady with so many patients, and ththey understand they

are the last person these pepeoe will see? >> you hit o on the ththree eles that i think arere important to focus on. the first is, what i is the impt on the patient? the second, what is the impact on the family and other loved ones? the third is, what is the impact on clinicians, health care workerers, who are a witness to this? i guess brutality is one word that c comes to mind because imagining people alone during a time like this feels brutal to think about. when we arets, scared, when we are confused, when we have a high fever, we are having difficulty breathing, the only human beings we see are covevered up entirely stuff they are wearing masks. they are wearing facial shields.

they are wearing gowns and gloves. you can barely see their eyes. i in contactou are with martians, not human beings. and on top of that, in order to protect health care workers, every hospital is maximizing the attempt to keep health care workers out of the patient's room. for example, we are setting people up with ivs and pumps that can be put outside the room with very long tubing so that nurses andnd other staff d do nt need toepeatedly enterthe patient's room. not only a are they compleletely covered in personanal protective equipmenent, their time e in the tient parts to be his room is 90% less than it normally would be. so human contact of any kind is our goodly diminished. because of this pandemic. m markedly diminished because of this pandemic. we are fundamentally and

biologicalally social animals. when you remove alall of the warmth and interaction and the human contactct that we evolvedo be critically dependent on, the distressss and suffering and confusion is inconceivable. then let''s move onto families. thatou will remember this when families talalk to us about lookingg back on the serious illness or death of a loloved o, they always talk about the same two things. one is that their loved one was cocomfortable, that t they weret in terrible pain or shortness sf brbreath or very agitated. and the second thing they say is, we were all thehere. we were e all there. and that givives tremendous w when looking back that it really counted, we showed up. we showed up for the people we

loloved most. we w were there. we left our jobs. we flew across the country. we were there. and families can't do that anymore. think the level of grief and bereavement and the whenculty overcoming that families can't say "we were there," hasre all never happened before, at least not in recent history. to anthink it will lead enormous level of complicated grief and bereavement, feelelins of shame, feelings of guilt, feelings like "i should have," even though there was nothing anyone c could do. you c can't visisit the hospitil when you're not allowed to visit the hospital. we in theng that health profession can do to help overcome that is crucial.

and then there is the third group, which is us, doctors, nurses, , social workers, envivinmental services staff, food staff. isolationness to this in this kikind of -- i don't knw if stigmatization is the right word, but when you isolate sosomeone and you try to keep staff out of the room and youu don't let t familieses in becaue the patient has covid and no one wants t to come -- wewe don't wt anyone to cocome neaear them, te is a kind of stigmatization that goes with that. and that suggests that the patient has become a danger to others. not only to him or herself, but also to others. dehumanizes the patient. so i am very concerned about how the normal instincts of doctors

and nurses and social workers and everyone who works in the health care system, which is to care and show human support and warmth and to o smile and to joe arouou and to r remind this patitient that he or she is stil part of the e human family -- al of those have gone away. canhat brbrings me to, whatt we do? amy: we have 2 2seconds. >> ok, we will have to talk about that another time. but there's a lolot we can do.o. amy: why don't we say there will be a post-show and we will post itit online at democracynow.org where people can n go right to . we want to thank dr. diane meier, director of the center to advance palliative care and a professor of geriatrics and palliative medicine at the icahn school of medicine at mount sinai. i very happy landmark birthday to our colleague erin dooley! democracy now! is working with as few people onsite as possible. the mamajority of our amazing tm is working from home. democracy now! is looking for feedback from people who appreciate the closed captioning.

e-mail your comments to outreach@democracynow.org or mail them to democracy now! p.o. box 693 new york, new york 10013. [captioning made possible by democracy now!]

narrator: on thihis episode of "e"earth fococus," avocadodos he become one of the most popular foods on the planet and exploded into a multibillion-dollar industry. the petorca province in chille is a hub of worldldwie avocado production, but the growth of the industry has created a crisis over water rights, raising questions about the moral dimensions of how our avocados are grown and consumed.