A year into the pandemic, mental health workers face burnout and soaring demands “There is a term that gets thrown around that we call brain fog or pandemic brain,” said Karl Pzpunar, who is the executive director of the Memory Lab at Ryerson University in TorontoPzpunar said that more people are struggling to remember simple tasks and retain focus since the COVID-19 pandemic hit“One thing that we think may be happening is that COVID had changed our lifestyle and we are not sleeping as well as we used to and we are more stressed than we used to be and these factors have a very stark impact on our attention and memory,” he said.Carole Payne of Moncton said she normally “devours” books but said she has been struggling to even read, “unless.