Abstract: Cultural responses to the first wave of COVID-19 pandemic in different parts of the world

The article reports on different cultural understandings of the first wave of COVID-19 pandemic and various coping mechanisms in India, Bangladesh, Japan, Syria, New Zealand, South Africa, Kenya, Tunisia, El Salvador, the USA, Italy and Belgium. Culture influences how an epidemic affects society, in terms of its origin, mode of spread and treatment, as well as responses to distress and health practices. Cultural responses to the pandemic contribute to control or accelerate its spread, and even unite or divide certain sectors of society. Culture also influences the perception of medical interventions and thus the demand or not for help from health services. The varied cultural responses show the importance of culture in public health, especially in a crisis, and of understanding it to implement health measures. Finally, in the depths of the first pandemic wave, the collaborative experience of gathering expressions of cultural influence in the pandemic created a sense of connection within the human system of a generation of early career psychiatrists across the globe, which helped cope with the traumatic potential of the pandemic as a factor of isolation and withdrawal, through challenges of respective professional contexts.