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Already in May, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals group emphasized that “[a]lthough the COVID-19 crisis is, in the first instance, a physical health crisis, it has the seeds of a major mental health crisis as well, if action is not taken.”

In Chile, Daniela Salinas, a psychologist from the Universidad Mayor in Santiago, studied the impact of the pandemic on Chileans’ mental health. She found that 66 percent of the 600 people surveyed had anxious reactions during confinement and 40 percent showed depressive symptoms. The study also found that there has been an increase in drug, alcohol, and tobacco consumption during quarantine, with increases of up to 14 percent in the case of cigarettes.