Karen Pence: 'It's OK to not be OK' during pandemic

WASHINGTON (AP) — Karen Pence says it’s OK to not be OK during the coronavirus pandemic.

While Vice President Mike Pence runs the White House coronavirus task force, his wife is leading a parallel effort to help people deal with anxiety and other unsettling emotions brought on by the pandemic.

Two months into the crisis, millions of Americans are struggling to cope with the fallout, whether it's losing loved ones, losing a job or staying at home more than they ever have.

“This is something we're all going through together, and it's not like anything we've ever gone through before,” Karen Pence told The Associated Press in a recent interview.

She is lead ambassador for the PREVENTS task force, an acronym for the President’s Roadmap to Empower Veterans and End the National Tragedy of Suicide. It was created in 2019 to focus on veterans' suicides but recently launched a social media campaign called “More Than Ever Before” to help reach Americans before they get to “the end of their rope,” she said.

“We want them to know there's help out there, and there are things that we can do to prevent some of the effects that this is having on our mental health as a nation,” Mrs. Pence said. She joined the PREVENTS effort early this year, before the extent of the coronavirus threat in the U.S. became clear.

A majority of Americans say they have felt at least one negative emotional reaction in the last seven days, according to a new poll conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago for the Data Foundation.

At least a third of Americans reported feeling nervous, depressed, lonely or hopeless at least one day in the past week. But taken together, 61% of Americans say they have felt at least one of those emotions at one point throughout the week.

Nine percent...