How COVID-19 challenged PhD students

In the initial stage of the COVID-19 pandemic, PhD research students were anxiously thinking about the transmission of the virus, even though they did not have any symptoms or close contact to the disease.
During the pandemic lockdown, PhD research students were stressed by the many new tasks they now had to adapt to, such as setting up an office at home, taking responsibility for their children’s home-schooling, and extra hygiene measures, including fastidiously washing their hands and disinfecting groceries.
All this added anxiety caused PhD research students like ourselves to wonder, ‘what will happen to my research’? It is evident that the whole world has been impacted by disruptions caused by COVID-19; however, empirical evidence is helpful to ascertain how much COVID-19 has impacted PhD research students.