EDITORIAL: COVID-19 and Anxiety and Depression in 2020.

As this edition of Depression and Anxiety is going to press, the world is experiencing a pandemic due to the novel coronavirus, SARS‐CoV‐2, and the disease it causes, COVID‐19. The extent of the pandemic and its eventual impact on the health and well being of all of us is uncertain. With uncertainty comes fear, anxiety, worry, and – under these circumstances where many people are dying – dread and despair.

I am not in any position to be able to foresee how this will all turn out. But I do know that many of us – clinicians and scientists alike – are being asked to help reduce the anxiety that is amplified by the constant news stream, and to provide guidance to the populace on how to cope under these terrifying and rapidly changing conditions.

The Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA) was forced to cancel its 2020 Annual Meeting, due to COVID‐19. The organization makes available on its website (https://adaa.org/findinghelp/coronavirus-anxiety-helpful-resources) a great deal of quality information that is available, at no cost, to anyone. I want to thank the many colleagues who provided this invaluable content. Please feel free to disseminate these articles and recommendations to colleagues, friends, family, news media, your institutions, and anyone who you believe would benefit from them.

This issue of Depression and Anxiety contains the Donald F. Klein MD Award winning paper for 2020, by Sanne van Rooij PhD and colleagues. I hope that the current issue, which focuses on posttraumatic disorder and other outcomes associated with trauma, will briefly help take your mind off COVID‐19. (On further thought, another topic might have been better, but this is Depression and Anxiety, and there is plenty of uplifting content here, with respect to treatment outcomes and increased understanding of neurobiology.)

Please socially isolate (physically, but not mentally, emotionally, or spiritually), wash your hands (the motto of OCD organizations for 2020 should be “We told you so!“), and stay well.

Murray B. Stein MD, MPH

Editor‐in‐Chief

Depression and Anxiety