Lockdown Suicide Data Reveal Predictable Tragedy
May 26th, 2020Via: American Institute for Economic Research:
On March 28, the American Institute for Economic Research ran a terrifying article that didn’t receive the attention it deserved, even though the research behind it was impeccable and detailed. It was Drugs, Suicide, and Crime: Empirical Estimates of the Human Toll of the Shutdown. On suicide in particular, the article said the following:
Whether it is the direct unemployment effect or the potential poverty produced from the economic shutdown that leads to greater suicides, an increase from the 48,344 suicides and 1,400,000 suicide attempts in the US in 2018 should give decision-makers pause during their response to this pandemic.
That article created in me a sense of dread. The warning was issued but unheeded. And sure enough, we now read that “California doctors say they’ve seen more deaths from suicide than coronavirus since lockdowns.”
Doctors in Northern California say they have seen more deaths from suicide than they’ve seen from the coronavirus during the pandemic.
“The numbers are unprecedented,” Dr. Mike deBoisblanc of John Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek, California, told ABC 7 News about the increase of suicide deaths adding that he’s seen a “year’s worth of suicides” in the last four weeks alone.
DeBoisblanc said he believes it’s time for California officials to end the stay-at-home order and let people back out into their communities.
“Personally, I think it’s time,” he said. “I think, originally, this was put in place to flatten the curve and to make sure hospitals have the resources to take care of COVID patients. We have the current resources to do that, and our other community health is suffering.”
Kacey Hansen, a trauma center nurse at John Muir Medical Center for over 30 years, says she’s not only worried about the increased suicide attempts but also about the hospital’s ability to save as many patients as usual.
“What I have seen recently, I have never seen before,” Hansen said. “I have never seen so much intentional injury.”…
By late March, more people had died in just one Tennessee county from suicide than had died in the entire state directly from the virus. Data out of Arizona show a similar trend.
Related: Many Americans haven’t seen or touched another person in 3 months because of COVID-19
