Dr. Ken Duckworth, associate medical director for behavior health at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, spoke Monday with Boston Public Radio about mental health during the coronavirus pandemic.
"At eight weeks of this, we're feeling the unknowns of this weigh large on our psyches," he said. "If somebody said this would be wrapped up by Memorial Day, I think a lot of people's mental health would be going better. But the truth is, you don't know what's going to happen."
The pandemic's unknowns are anxiety-provoking, Duckworth noted, and social distancing regulations don't help.
"The need for connection is material," he said. "We're social creatures, and isolation does not come naturally to us."
Duckworth is also the medical director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
