It’s official, California: COVID-19 has left us sick with worry and increasingly depressed. And our youngest adults — those ages 18 to 29 — are feeling it the worst.

Weekly surveys conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau from late April through late July offer a grim view of the toll the pandemic has taken on mental health in the Golden State and across the nation. By late July, more than 44% of California adults reported levels of anxiety and gloom typically associated with diagnoses of generalized anxiety disorder or major depressive disorder — a stunning figure that rose through the summer months alongside the menacing spread of the coronavirus.

The U.S. at large has followed a similar pattern, with about 41% of adult respondents nationwide reporting symptoms of clinical anxiety or depression during the third week of July. By comparison, just 11% of American adults reported those symptoms in a similar survey conducted in early 2019.

The July responses showed a marked geographic variance. Residents of Western and Southern states, where the virus remains most virulent, registered greater mental distress, on average.

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The findings reflect a generalized sense of hopelessness of the severity of the global crisis set in. Most adults have been moored at home in a forced stasis, many in relative isolation. The unemployment rate hit its highest rate since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Thousands of families across California and tens of thousands across the U.S. have lost people to the virus. There is no clear indication when — or even if — life will return to normal.

“The pandemic is the first wave of this tsunami, and the second and third waves are really going to be this behavioral health piece,” said Jessica Cruz, executive director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) California.

The surveys were part of a novel partnership between the National Center for Health Statistics and the Census Bureau to provide relevant data on the coronavirus’ impact. In weekly online surveys over three months, the Census Bureau asked about 900,000 Americans questions to quantify their levels of anxiety or depression. The four survey questions are a modified version of a common screening tool physicians use to diagnose mental illness.

Respondents were asked how often during the previous seven days they had been bothered by feeling hopeless or depressed; had felt little interest or pleasure in doing things; had felt nervous or anxious; or had experienced uncontrolled worry. They were scored based on how often they had experienced those symptoms in the previous week, ranging from never to nearly every day.

Read the full story on LATimes.com.