Download This PaperCOVID-19, Isolation, Mammalian Dispersal Patterns, Urban Density, Social Distancing and Mass Psychogenic Disease
62 Pages Posted: 4 May 2020 Last revised: 17 Oct 2020
Date Written: May 1, 2020
Abstract
Abstract Similarities between past Mass Psychogenic Disease events and mass behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic are compared. Isolation of mass populations in typically dense urban areas are examined as an unusually condition that could form initial stimulation for MPD. Psychological factors like uncertainty, confused political discourse, blaming of subgroups and minorities as well as rival political or religious groups could also be motivations. Conclusion of MPD events in the past are also examined and relation of the development of MPD in the past and parallels with the present. Social distancing and quarantine are not new methods to control and shape epidemics. Invented during the Bubonic Plague in the 14th century in Venice, the methods have varied considerably and human responses to isolation have been also numerous. These are similar to mammalian dispersal patterns in response to stress. In the current situation separation of workers from co-workers has taken place in a new context. Prior to the pandemic many individuals either lived alone or traveled long distances to families they typically spent little time with. This report draws attention to several emerging trends as a result of these conditions. Cities in history have reproduced cycles of urbanism, density, disease and dispersal. Current theories to modify density are aimed at reducing this cycle. Cultural Factors in transmission, government responses and time of arrival of disease are considered as well as SAS of populations and ethnicity. Behavioral responses to the pandemic have taken marked trends seen in past cases, including violence against minorities, attacks on medical workers and forms of denial and mass behavior against governments. Some pandemics in the past have manifested forms of mass psychogenic disease. As COVID-19 is just beginning to mature as a pandemic we might see the appearance of such mass illness. Human adaptations to pathogens and human caused changes in the environment have undergone dramatic change as has medicine one specific human response to disease.
Keywords: COVID-19, quarantine, proxemics, disease avoidance, culture, mass psychogenic disease, dispersal
JEL Classification: H12, H42, H51, I12, I18, I31, J11, J38
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