Returning to work, school and everyday activities is leaving many individuals who hadn’t suffered from anxiety before the COVID-19 shutdown with Pandemic-Acquired Risk Avoidance (PARA) – a new way that psychologists characterize pandemic-related stress and anxiety. “The Delta variant has compounded the situation,” said Dorothy W. Cantor, a psychologist and member of GSAPP’s first graduating class of 1976. “Based on our observations, the variant and its rapid contagion have likely reignited people’s anxieties about resuming pre-pandemic activities and that they should consider that to be a normal reaction to an abnormal set of circumstances rather than pathology.” To read the full story.