The COVID-19 pandemic may not be a hurricane, a terrorist attack or a war, but it is a disaster. As a disaster psychologist Dr. George Everly has spent four decades responding to the mental-health needs of victims of calamities around the world.

One of his conclusions is that the psychological casualties of a disaster--people so badly hurt mentally or emotionally that they can’t do what they need to do in life--always outnumber the physical casualties. What should we be doing now to address the pandemic’s psychological cost?