Get all the latest news on coronavirus and more delivered daily to your inbox. Sign up here.
Dr. Phil McGraw, psychologist, author and host of “Dr. Phil,” appeared on “The Ingraham Angle” Thursday to discuss how the American people are dealing with stress and depression during the ongoing lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“This is invisible. I can’t show you an X-ray of depression, I can’t show you an X-ray of anxiety, but the fact of the matter is, the longer this lockdown goes on, the more vulnerable people get,” the television personality said.
“And it’s like there’s a tipping point. There’s a point at which people start having enough problems in lockdown that it will actually create more destruction and actually more deaths across time than the actual virus will itself.”
THE CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAK, STATE BY STATE
McGraw warned that lives will be destroyed, not just from the virus but from life’s changes that have come as a consequence.
“The fallout is going to last for years because people’s lives are being destroyed,” he said.
The television host warned of the negative effects, physically, of loneliness, as the country spends day after day in their homes.
“It’s a perfect storm because here you’ve got people that are in isolation that creates problems. Loneliness actually creates problems. People that suffer from loneliness,” McGraw said.
“They become 29 percent more likely to have coronary artery disease, 32 percent more likely to have strokes or die, 40 percent more likely to have dementia if they’re in that age group. So it’s not just that. It’s psychological. Their bodies actually start breaking down.”
CLICK HERE FOR COMPLETE CORONAVIRUS COVERAGE
McGraw warned more lives may be destroyed as a result of the lockdown.
“So we think we’re protecting people’s lives by keeping them locked up. You keep it locked up long enough, there’s a paradoxical effect,” McGraw said. “You actually destroy more lives than you do by letting them go out and protect themselves and up into their lives to fight for what they believe in.”
