New Syndrome Discovered

The Armchair Anthropologist

From my vantage point as armchair anthropologist during this pandemic, I have discovered a new stress syndrome among humans. I'm calling it Covid And, or Covid-And Stress Syndrome to give it its full name. 

Here's how it develops: Humans now have a high background level of stress due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Nevertheless, most of them manage to cope under most circumstances, providing they or their loved ones are not among those that contract the virus. But then something else happens. It could be almost any other stressful thing, even something small like a third straight day of rain. That's the And part. The pandemic fears and isolation stress plus that other stress combine to overwhelm the human. 

Is your human exhibiting signs of extra stress?

The human is likely to be as surprised by their reaction to the combined stress as you are. Humans are not very good at keeping more than one thing in their heads at a time, so they may think they are reacting to just the additional stress (the And). And then they might start blaming themselves for overreacting, which simply serves to increase their stress levels by another considerable amount. This is a common symptom of Covid And.

If your humans seem particularly brittle or fragile just now, they probably have Covid-And Stress Syndrome. If so, a little extra patience will be needed to see both you and them through it. So hang in there! Remember to encourage your humans to stay at home and practice good paw washing technique, so that we can all get back to normality more quickly.

Continue to demonstrate good paw washing technique