No abstract

From the beginning of COVID-19 pandemic, concerns have been raised about its effect on mental health and on patients with psychiatric illnesses. A few reports suggest that patients with COVID-19 have increased symptoms of anxiety disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, increased substance use, and insomnia. There is an increased trend seen in flare-up of psychotic symptoms and new emergence of psychotic symptoms in previously healthy adults. There is extensive research available on the impact of COVID-19 on physical health, but there is a paucity of studies on the effects of COVID-19 on psychiatric illness.

No abstract

“Necessity is the mother of invention:” An adage was brought to life with the emergence of the mRNA vaccine against the backdrop of the foreboding and mercurial COVID-19 pandemic. Considering a negligible adverse-effect profile and a break-neck manufacturing speed, it shone bright as the ideal vaccine candidate. However, “all that glitters is not gold,” as was evidenced by the significant reactogenicity, a host of multi-systemic side-effects, that are being reported by the vaccine recipients; which is palpably resulting in a shift of emotions for the vaccine, accounting for vaccine hesitancy. Anaphylaxis, antibody-dependent enhancements, and deaths, comprise the most serious side-effects, albeit occurring in sparing numbers. Storage and transportation require fastidious temperatures, rendering it substantially inaccessible to a country like India. The biggest jolt, however, was the unfolding of the biases in reporting vaccine efficacy, as only the attractively high numbers of the relatively equivocal relative risk reduction were reported while keeping at bay the meager numbers of the more forthright absolute risk reduction. Notwithstanding the fallacies, the mRNA vaccine still promises hope; and with the right precautions and finesse, can be potentiated, as “a watched pot never boils.”