60 Minutes: Mental health challenges during the coronavirus pandemic

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Even if they haven't been infected with the coronavirus, hundreds of millions of Americans have had their lives upended by the pandemic. John Dickerson reports on the toll the virus taken on our mental health.

Hundreds of millions of Americans are at home. Most of them don't want to be. Simple choices about what to touch, where to walk and what to wear are fraught. More than 100,000 people have died worldwide, and fears of how much more those numbers could grow have stopped much of daily life. But the bills have not stopped coming, though the paychecks in some cases have. We don't know when it will end. It's a recipe for anxiety, stress, and grief which puts more of us than ever before in a struggle to stay well. The regimen of physical hygiene is well-established: wash your hands; stay six feet away, cover your face. But the rules for good mental hygiene are not as clear. Psychologists told us that after Americans get past the worst of it, the worst of it may not be over. There may be mental health aftershocks. It's hard to predict, and living with that unpredictability is part of the challenge.

John Dickerson: What does it feel like when that phone rings?

Francesca Santacroce: We run and we pick it up right away. And we're just waiting. Just we don't know what to expect. We don't know if they're going to tell us good news or bad news. We're just really anxious about it.

Francesca Santacroce is describing the daily update from the hospital treating her father Joseph, a COVID-19 patient on a ventilator. Before the coronavirus hit her home in the close residential neighborhood of Staten Island, New York, her father took care of the family while Francesca worked in a doctor's office, saving money for medical school. A 23-year-old biomolecular sciences major, she is the first in her family to graduate college. But when we first interviewed her, at the approved distance, in her driveway two weeks ago, Francesca was shouldering her father's duties, cooking, cleaning and caring for her 16-year-old sister, and mother, who needs five days a week of home dialysis. This video was shot by Francesca's sister on a cellphone, after their mother was also diagnosed with COVID-19.

Francesca Santacroce: I literally feel like I'm about to shatter in a million pieces right now. I feel like one wrong move and I'm going to break. And I'm going to fall apart. But I know that I can't. I can't do that. Because I need to take care of my family right now.


Transcript and videos (Including Wynton Marsalis): https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronavirus-anxiety-sadness-grief-depression-60-minutes-2020-04-12/