Mental toll of Covid pandemic 'fuels political violence'

Researchers find burden of the coronavirus outbreak contributed to unrest in the US

A demonstrator raises a fist in Seattle, US, at the height of the George Floyd protests last summer. Getty

The psychological toll of the pandemic made people more prone to political violence, a new study has found.

Researchers found that the unrest which broke out at protests in the US was partly fuelled by the strain of living through Covid-19.

They said recovery efforts were needed to restore trust between governments and citizens as well as to rebuild economies.

The findings add to a weight of concerns that the pandemic could provide a fertile breeding ground for extremism and radicalisation.

“The pandemic has disrupted our normal way of living, generating frustrations, unprecedented social exclusion and a range of other concerns,” said Henrikas Bartusevicius, co-author of the study.

“Our investigations show that the psychological toll of living through a pandemic also stoked anti-government and anti-systemic attitudes that led to political violence in a number of countries.”

The latest study asked 6,000 people in four countries about their political mood and the additional strain they faced in the pandemic.

People were asked whether they felt that their social lives, their democratic rights and their overall health suffered because of the crisis.

Experts previously expressed fears that young people were particularly at risk of becoming aggressive during lockdown.

In the US especially, people reporting a tougher experience in the pandemic were more likely to have engaged in violence during last year’s protests.

This could be because the pandemic affected some groups more than others and generated feelings of anger and injustice, psychologists said.

Demonstrators in Paris protest against lockdown restrictions. EPA

Protests that erupted in the US and around the world were triggered by the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.

Researchers described the mixture of police brutality and the anxieties of the pandemic as a "perfect storm", which unleashed a wave of public anger.

The Black Lives Matter movement prompted counter-protests by right-wing groups and demonstrators promising to defend historical statues.

In other protests people voiced anger at lockdown restrictions, including in the Netherlands where several days of rioting took place this year.

Violence and looting at some protests was “likely a manifestation of the psychological toll the pandemic has had on citizens”, researchers said.

The continuing health crisis “places many countries at an increased risk of political unrest”, they said.

“Our findings constitute a reminder that the Covid-19 pandemic is an all-out crisis, carrying effects far beyond the domain of health.”

The study is published in the journal Psychological Science.