Half of Canadians fear COVID-19 will never really be over: Report

Mental wellness check! How’s your mental health doing?

If you’re anything like 64% of Canadians who are stressed out and worried about new COVID-19 variants potentially around the corner, then it’s possible you could benefit from more support.

A new report from the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) in partnership with UBC researchers shows the extent to which the pandemic has had “devastating impacts on the mental health, substance use and homelessness of Canadians.”

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The CMHA also made recommendations based on its findings. One of the main ones is that people are using not-for-profit mental health and addictions services delivered by charitable organizations, but their funding is inadequate.

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BREAKING: New research from @CMHA_NTL and @ubcnews *today* says most Canadians worry COVID will never go away.

📈64% of Canadians worried about new variants
📈57% worried about COVID-19 circulating in the population for years to come#MentalHealth https://t.co/BhsU7q7VOl

— Katherine Janson (@katherinejanson) March 1, 2022

Here are a few highlights of what the study found:

46% of Canadians are stressed or worried about coping with uncertainty.
37% of Canadians say their mental health has declined since the onset of the pandemic.
36% of Canadians are worried about the compounding effects of climate change on top of COVID-19.
8% have had recent thoughts or feelings of suicide.
7% of Canadians felt they needed mental health support during the pandemic but didn’t get it.

So if you’ve found your mental health to be impacted in the past two years, then know you’re not alone.

If you want to access mental health services, you can contact your local CMHA and check out Canada’s Wellness Together portal for more information.