Mental health of scientists in the time of COVID-19

To the Editor

As the world calls on everyone to work together collectively to identify potential chinks in the armour of COVID-19 and to identify the optimal antibody test and develop a vaccine (Holmes et al., 2020), let us not forget to consider the mental health effects of COVID-19 on laboratory scientists, the very people fighting this battle or their colleagues whose non-COVID-19 work have to be stopped abruptly because of the pandemic.

Researchers scramble to balance personal career-driven goals and responsibilities to the general public in battling the pandemic, but very little has been highlighted about the mental health impact on biomedical scientists during this period. Of high relevance is a 2020 published study (just prior to COVID-19) that surveyed 4000 scientists in the UK and found that half of them had struggled with depression or anxiety (Abbott, 2020). High stress and low morale were prevalent in laboratories (Holleman et al., 2015), where long hours, bullying and harassment, and institutional metrics have forced many to the brink of depression (Woolston, 2019). With the current shut-down of non COVID-19 research laboratories, PhD students, junior researchers to principal investigators all face the added stress of having to ingeniously keep their projects afloat from home, while circumventing administrative and legal minefields associated with maintaining laboratories on lockdown.

For the infectious disease scientists working on COVID-19, pressure is at an all-time high to generate vaccines, to target antibodies, and to perform large-scale testing that would benefit public health, and the constant struggle of being in the front line can lead many to burnout. For the PhD students and post-doctoral fellows working on non COVID-19 projects who had to cull the animal models or destroy precious cell lines that have been painstakingly generated and primed to be analysed during this period, the impact on these young minds can be potentially devastating. One can only imagine the mental resilience needed to maintain focus on solving that equally important mystery in oncology, cardiology, neuroscience, or any other field that has been put on temporary hold due to the pandemic. Both groups however will eventually need to face the even greater challenge of entering into the post-COVID19 era, as it is anticipated that return to normality will not be just a simple “on–off” switch. There will be restrictions such as staggered working hours, inability to physically exchange material, delays in manuscript publications, and many other stressors that will undoubtedly affect the mental health of all researchers. Ironically, more research will need to be done on how these new stressors affect the already stressed out researchers.

The hard truth is that COVID-19 has changed and will continue to affect how scientists live their day-to-day lives. As the world continues to struggle against the collective enemy, some attention should be placed on the mental health of the silent warriors on the laboratory bench. In the face of overwhelming odds against finding the vaccine for COVID-19 or the cure for cancer or dementia, researchers around the world should find solace in the fact that they are at the frontline of finding a better future for humankind.