Obama made the comments during a podcast and said she is having difficulty sleeping as she's worrying about something.

"I'm waking up in the middle of the night because I'm worrying about something or there's a heaviness," the former US First Lady said.

Obama was interviewing US journalist Michele Norris for her podcast when she made the announcement.

These are not, they are not fulfilling times, spiritually. I know that I am dealing with some form of low-grade depression.

"Not just because of the quarantine, but because of the racial strife, and just seeing this administration, watching the hypocrisy of it, day in and day out, is dispiriting," Obama added.

She said the killings of black people in the US have left her distrubed and feeling a burden that she hasn't felt in a while.

"[It is] exhausting [to be] waking up to yet another story of a black man or a black person somehow being dehumanised, or hurt, or killed, or falsely accused of something," she said, adding, "And it has led to a weight that I haven't felt in my life, in a while."

While the Covid-19 pandemic has affected 18,983,280 people around the world, leading to 711,313 deaths, the US by far remains the worst hit nation.

The United States of America has recorded 4,973,741 cases and 161,607 deaths so far.

It is trailed by Brazil- 2,862,761 cases and 97,418; Mexico- 456,100 cases and 49,698 deaths; the United Kingdom- 307,184 cases and 46,364 deaths; and India- 1,967,700 cases and 40,772 deaths.