What do I think about COVID, or why you don't need to be afraid of the... dog

Background

There is a need to write an editorial for our favorite journal. I don't want to, but I need to. It is our brainchild. And the child needs to be brought up. So, I write.

The topic I chose is not hard to guess. Everyone is talking about the pandemic. Apparently, when kindergartens are opened, children will start playing new games called "Dad and Mom in Self-Isolation", "Angry Dad, because he does not go to work", "How everyone got me", or something like that. A topic that is called planetary one. And anything global grips the attention and stirs the blood.

Probably no one has an experience of living in a pandemic. So, there is a new experience and a test of self-sustainability. Thanks God the profession protects me. Because willing or not, scientific curiosity is still involved – how people react to this abnormal situation, why exactly this way, how it is necessary to work with them now, what will happen then and in general – whether we will go out to the sea this year or that’s the end of word “sea”?

I could list a dozen more questions, but even these are enough to slowly spoil my and others mood.

What is happening?

I will not tell too much in a popularized way about the epidemic as a consequence of the spread of a new human virus. And its natural transition to a pandemic because of the powerlessness of human in front of a piece of RNA in the protein shell. Rather, the virus raised a natural question: "Who is the master here, Homo sapiens?". The answer is simple and obvious - microorganisms and viruses. We are guests. But we are curious guests. Even through fear and hundreds of thousands of deaths, we get to the bottom of the interaction on this biological testing area, which is called Planet Earth.

But let's get to the heart of our conversation. Actually, to my monologue in the form of an article. So, in my opinion, we are witnessing the simultaneous spread of two viruses - real one (Sars-Cov-2) and virtual one (Informational-stressful). What unites them? Both of them are destructive, both are aimed at survival, but not at killing the distribution material, and finally both are immortal. In other words, we are faced with biological and social immortality. The virus will quietly move to its population, whether bats or rats, to visit renewed the human population again in ten years to undergo mutational processes. And human emotions and their producer – the social brain, will again make us throng around information sources and scare each other up to paranoia. To arrange a kind of regressive puerilism. But as the rock guitar genius Jimi Hendrix said, " In order to change the world, you have to get your head together first."

Rationale behind

Let's bring this order together.

Why do I draw parallels between viruses and ideas? Because the people’s ideas are characterized by all the mechanisms of parasitic spread: the ideas are transmitted from person to person, they multiply, suppress a man’s will up to the suicide of the carrier of the idea to spread the idea itself. This is the opinion of the great American philosopher – cognitivist Daniel Dennet. He substantiated these ideas well in his books "Breaking the Spell" [1] and "From Bacteria to Bach and Back" [2]. That's right: viruses and ideas up to mental traps behave in exactly the same way. And the consequences are the same. Incredible stuff. But it’s true.

The brain has adapted to spread ideas in the evolution on the principle of "Others need it more than me." We are programmed to share information. Like the virus, which is programmed to self-replicate in order to spread. And the closer we live, the more successfully both viruses will implement their main idea - immortality.

The ideas of Matthew Lieberman, an American professor of psychology, a cool expert in the biology of behavior and one of the founders of social cognitive neuroscience are close to me. He also believes that the evolution of human and the very top of this evolution - a social brain - are an implementation of the evolutionary expediency in living in a single information space with all the pros and cons of this space. Read at least his interesting book "Social Why Our Brain Are Wired To Connect" [3]. Very interesting thoughts are expressed by this neuro-socio-psychologist about "brain parasites" – ideas that are spread on the perfect basis for their replication - the social brain.

And it is important here to bridge the gap between the products of the brain - ideas, thoughts, fantasies and other achievements of neuroscience. There is an interesting publication in Neuron. The journal published a fairly fundamental work of evolution in which Damian Stanley and Ralph Adolphs had showed in considerable detail and with good reasoning that the brain structures, which are responsible for socialization, develop in parallel with the structures responsible for the emotional evaluation of these connections [4].

In other words, our thoughts are automatically emotional and our emotions are cognitive. Consequently, the spread of ideas (cognitive component) automatically and unconditionally involves emotional spread. The question is what kind of emotional spread? That’s right - regressive in essence - anxiety, depression, aggression, addiction, paranoia. The virus has reached its aim. Not only to replicate in the resisting organism, but on the contrary - to replicate superfast in the organism, which regressively starts to move in crowds and cities. Moreover, the organism, which lay oneself opened to emotional suppression of immunity.

The virus and pandemic essentially put humanity to the test of resistance to the "Dunbar’s number." Let me remind you that the British anthropologist Robin Dunbar once put forward an interesting idea that the natural size of a flock in different primates is strictly related to the size of their brains [5]. And for people according to this formula, it fluctuates within the number of 150. This is the "Dunbar number". Further only facts are presented: for six thousand years BC an average number of people, who had been living in the Neolithic settlements was equal to 159. For centuries – there were the same villages and the same number of people before the Industrial Revolution in 15-16 centuries. Finally, people gathered in metropolises, but their controlled contacts in the Facebook or Instagram, despite the pseudo-thousand "friends" remained around the number 150. The brain changes much more slowly than lifestyle and its fabulousness. And only a virus in a pandemic version can break this number. We instantly unite into a single nation - frightened children who scare each other to throng even closer. Including for spreading of the virus.

System errors of thinking are formed as a result of cognitive biases, with raising a false success, learned helplessness and other ideas of human interaction. In the last century, the speed and coverage of the information spread about the horrors of events at a planetary level (terrorist attacks, wars, pandemics, etc.) has increased sharply. A new type of injury is informational.

If fear and anxiety in the society continue to grow and become chronic, it is very likely that they provoke paranoid regress in most people. Examples:

• Pandemic is provoked by neglect from space (alien theory);
• This is the beginning of World War of superstates through each other's resource’s depletion;
• It is an attempt to control the world's population;
• It is an opportunity to resolve the issue of the aging population of the planet;
• Experiments with biological weapons;
• Establishing a total digital control over people.

Fear and self-isolation in this fear forces our brain to reduce the Default Mode Network function and work hard to find a way out. Sometimes a destructive one.

We think naively that we have a rational program of self-defense. It is working. But not in situations of collective madness. Genetic programs do not protect. They only create variations. "Just like in the eyes, ears, or hands, there is no even a hint of a plan in the genome - but as many compromises, coincidences and misunderstandings as you like," said Steve Jones [6], a well-known geneticist. But people do not always use the best variations. As many examples as you want:

• Addictions;
• Destructive cults;
• Mobbing;
• Subcultures aimed at self-destruction;
• The ideology of fascism and much more.

The fact that thoughts, imaginations, fantasies, as the embodiment of self-programming are often cause of the disease or its trigger, is not new and the bulk of understanding of psychosomatic mechanisms is built on these ideas. But new is the thing, which the American sociologist Robert King Merton wrote in the 1940s. Merton's article, The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy, was published in the Antioch Review in 1948 [7]. But the term, in its current interpretation, became known through the 1968 work "Social Theory and Social Structure," which became a classic. Here is the definition given in this book:

"The self-fulfilling prophecy is, in the beginning, a false definition of the situation evoking a new behavior which makes the originally false conception come true." [8]

In fact, Giorgio Agamben the Italian philosopher revisited exactly to these ideas but in a new coil. In his "Reflections on the Plague" he reached back to the thesis he had invented in the mid-1990s: "now society no longer believes in anything but ‘naked life’ (nuda vita)" [9]. In the pandemic shock there is the only positive thing - that people will wonder: "Did we live right?" ("Homo Sacer") [10]. Reflecting further we should raise the integrative questions: "False definition" and "Naked Life" of the pandemic. What did they create new?

I think these points, first of all:

• Alternative communication;
• Social paranoia;
• Quiet schizoidation;
• Collective emissions of hysteria;
• Sublimation in new versions;
• Superheroism - as ‘covidiotism’;
• Freedom is dosed and on schedule;
• Acceptance of the idea of ‘naked life’;
• Personalization of God;
• Interrupted visitation ceremony;
• Conscience of the unpredictability of the future.

And all this is the result of the enormous speed of events that revolve both in the real world and in our heads. Any infection, from viral to emotional (panic, stress) in modern society has become very rapid due to the total urbanization, housing density, large and constant displacement, high technology, flagrant interference in the environment.

I would like to remind you that for the stress disorders the background on which it (stress) arises becomes more important. Now the background is far in excess than the potential of the stressor. And the background is already familiar to us:

• predominance of negative news over positive;
• permanent anxious waiting;
• distrust of everyone except family;
• nihilism;
• spread of magical thinking and esotericism;
• paranoia in society;
• inability to plan for the near future;
• uncertainty;
• probability of losing a job;
• fear for children;
• assessment of the environment in which you live as unfriendly and dangerous;
• trust in technology and at the same time fear of it;
• substitution of real relationships with virtual and much more.

Self-isolation has created a dilemma: it is very important from the position of biological survival and absolutely destructive from the position of the social brain. Perhaps that is why psychiatrists and psychologists alarm with the information that the pandemic and its consequences such as the self-isolation have provoked a significant increase in addiction to smartphones [11].

Samantha Brooks (King's College, London, 2020) provides the major stressors during quarantine. The most important role is played by its duration: "Studies reports us that the longer the quarantine lasts, the greater the risk of psychological problems is, including the development of post-traumatic stress symptoms, avoidance behavior and anger." Infection fears and related fears for their lives and the lives of the family members - another risk factor. Moreover, a study conducted by Brooks, concludes that these fears are significantly exacerbated in people who adhere to quarantine [12].

Conclusion: all three factors were equally significant, and the strength of their influence was comparable to or exceeded the influence of the other well-known factors, such as obesity [13].

Loneliness and social isolation increase the risk of heart disease by 29%, and the risk of heart attack - by 32% [14].

American professor of psychology and neurobiology Julianne Holt-Lunstad (Brigham Young University) concluded that the feeling of loneliness caused by social isolation is harmful to human health, which can be compared with 15 cigarettes a day [15].

Single people have a higher risk of early death than alcoholics and obese people. For the social animals to which human belongs, being out of community ties is not only sad but is also dangerous. Therefore, in isolation, the human brain enters kind a "mode of self-preservation": the brain begins to see a social threat everywhere. Therefore, the lacking communication with other people becomes even more problematic. They don't look at you like that, they don't think about you like that, and in general some people are somehow different. We are constantly forced to keep the defense, and therefore less inclined to understand the other person. In the morning we have elevated levels of cortisol - a stress hormone. We are preparing for another day full of threats. We are more prone to impulsive behavior. In isolation, our behavior changes greatly - and we are not aware of it [16].

People are becoming more and more traumatic to each other. A chronic anthropogenic or social situation that goes beyond the ordinary, "normal human experience" arises. And another person is the source of injury (street attack, sexual violence, local wars, terrorist acts, information attack). This is accompanied by:

• Fear of being all alone;
• "Loss of control" over oneself;
• Fear that such an event may happen again;
• Helplessness: the event shows powerlessness;
• Grief caused by fear of death, injury and other heavy losses;
• Sorrow for what happened;
• Blaming oneself for infecting;
• Regret that the person did not do something, but it could be done;
• Shame that the person was helpless, "sensitive" and needed others;
• Anger at what happened and who had caused it; and at the injustice and absurdity of everything that was happening;
• Painful memories of feelings associated with the absence of dead people.
• Disappointment in oneself, others, in life.

Gabriel H.T. Ling, in his study on the sociality of destructive behavior associated with a pandemic, writes that “... because of fear, insecurity, and greed during the panic in public places, most people are dominated by selfish tendencies and behaviors, as well as opportunistic (defective, unethical) forms that clearly dominate the public interest. Selfishness in its destruction becomes a short-term winner "[17].

When fear and anxiety become unbearable, it is then necessary to recall the title of this article.

Why the dog?

It turned out to be shockingly easy. American dog trainers have such booklets with the simple advices on all kinds of questions about the dogs. And some of them are about what to do if you are attacked on the street by an untrained or uncontrolled dog. They are as follows: "Do not run! Do not wave your hands and especially the stick! Don't make an eye contact!” And finally, the most interesting and effective advice: "immediately stop being afraid of the dog!".

Gorgeous advice. Purely psycho-neuro-endocrine one. Fear has a smell. In a state of fear, we literally stink of defeat and helplessness. The dog feels it. We feel only when the pants become wet and sticky. Dogs have a different sense of smell. They sniff at it and knows they have won. So, they can easily attack. The same story is about viruses.

Some consequences of a quarantine lasted for months and even years. For example, after an outbreak of SARS in 2003, the doctors had been abusing alcohol for the following three years and had also the other addictions. Chinese doctors and nurses who worked with coronavirus patients in 2020 have shown already an increase in symptoms of anxiety and depression.

Those who were in the quarantine longer than ten days, had much more pronounced post-traumatic stress symptoms. First of all, avoiding behavior: they felt anxious when coughing or sneezing around (54% of people), avoided crowds, enclosed spaces (26%), avoided any public places for months after quarantine (21%) [18].

Lessons from epidemics and quarantines over the last 20 years [19]:

• Most of the negative effects on the human psyche are associated with the forced restraint of liberty;
• With voluntary self-isolation, people experience less stress. Therefore, the authorities should emphasize altruism in the choice of self-isolation;
• The quarantine period should be as short as possible. The longer people are locked up, the more long-term complications they will have for their mental health;
• Information is the most important thing. People need to understand the situation, because uncertainty is one of the main sources of anxiety;
• Effective and efficient communication by the authorities reduces the amount of stress and its consequences;
• There should be an access to the basic necessities - products and medicines.

We are witnessing as an "era" of neurotic disorders of the late XX and early XXI centuries has changed into an "era" of depression. And before our eyes it is changing into an "era" of anxiety and stress disorders.

We are rethinking the new paradigm of "Coexistence", remembering that 67 thousand (studied) of bacteria and viruses and millions of their species are recorded in the planet. And they most likely appeared before the birth of life on Earth. And through tangential mechanisms they can control not only simple cells, but also complex organisms, including humans (evidence - the behavior of animals infected with tetanus virus, the behavior of animals infected with Toxoplasma, or "increased social activity" of those who received the flu vaccine, etc.). Here is the answer to the "sociality" of Sars-Cov-2.

But there is good news

They are unbelievably simple: appreciate your "Dunbar number" and… Stop being afraid of the dogs.

And then you will definitely get into the number of the optimists who keep immunity flu (and now immunity from Coronavirus) much longer than the frightened pessimists.

Life is interesting! That's why we keep living our lives.