It is important to note that Maor et al. wrote their paper in May 2020 when the Covid-19 pandemic in Israel appeared to be under control, with limited damage. However, the second wave of the pandemic soon arrived, and infection rates in Israel became one of the highest in the western world, and the political situation has deteriorated steadily. Ever-changing regulations, which part of the population views as motivated by political rather than health-related interests, and the growing social protests and demonstrations against the government and especially against Prime Minister Netanyahu, have become an integral part of the Israeli reality.
This situation seems to align with Boin et al.’s (2020) conceptualization of a creeping crisis that erodes public trust in institutions that are unsuccessful in handling public crises, such as the Covid-19 crisis. On one hand, according to Maor et al. (2020), the authorities in Israel are using various tactics to exacerbate the fears and anxiety that the pandemic evokes, and on the other hand, social protestors wave banners of “We’re sick of you – you’re disconnected,” accusing officials of being out of touch with people’s lives, which is in alignment with what Boin et al. (2020) regard as insufficient attention by authorities to the pandemic and its consequences. The following sub-section refers to the negative emotions that characterize “Corona times.”
Fear, Stress, and Anxiety
In a report published in early 2020, the European branch of the World Health Organization (WHO) stated, “As the coronavirus pandemic rapidly sweeps across the world, it is inducing a considerable degree of fear, worry, and concern in the population at large and among certain groups in particular, such as older adults, care providers, and people with underlying health conditions” (WHO, 2020). Since early 2020, several articles on individuals’ mental health and emotional responses to the pandemic have been published. Discussed below are several that are relevant to the current study.
Already in March 2020, Mertens, Gerritsen, Duijndam, Salemink, and Engelhard, (2020) reported the results of an Internet survey involving 437 participants, conducted to trace predictors of Covid-19-related fears. These researchers claim that while fear is an adaptive emotion that mobilizes the energy required to cope with potential threats, fear can be maladaptive when it is disproportionate to the actual threat. For instance, excessive fear may have detrimental effects both at the individual level (e.g., mental health problems such as phobia and social anxiety) and at the societal level (e.g., panic shopping or xenophobia).
Insufficient fear may also result in harm for individuals and society (e.g., leading to people’s disregard of government measures to slow the spread of coronavirus or reckless policies that ignore the risks). Mertens et al. (2020) found that increased fear was related to perceived risks to loved ones and health anxiety. However, as Kumar and Nayar (2020) concluded, fear may be one of the most significant underlying elements that potentially lead to impaired well-being and mental health outcomes. Mertens et al. (2020) also found that increased fear was related to regular and social media use. They conclude that the media might heighten fears, but given that there are different styles of coping with stress (Ayalon & Lahad, 2000), for some people, social media use might also be an effective way of coping with the negative impact of the coronavirus on their well-being.
