"Initially for all of us, there [was] a lot of uncertainty and people feeling out of control. Part of that is all the confusing information we're receiving," Karestan Koenen told Business Insider. Koenen is an epidemiologist and professor of psychiatric epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She studies the effects of trauma and stress.
Koenen has been hosting mental health forums that are open to the public. She's been noticing a lot of stress and anxiety among the general population. She said stress and discouragement can lead to a sense of burnout.
"Events that are threatening, are uncontrollable, and have a lot of uncertainty are really toxic to mental health," she said.
Dr. Samantha Meltzer-Brody, a professor studying mood and anxiety disorders at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, told Business Insider that anxiety and stress, left unchecked, can turn into depression.
"What starts as anxiety and mood swings [that] people perceive as very temporary," she said, "can develop [into] more persistent anxiety disorders or depression, the longer this goes on."