Suicide rate rises amid pandemic

...the more sweeping consequences of the pandemic, including physical distancing measures, also may pose a risk to the general public... People with and without existing psychiatric disorders may experience exacerbated symptoms because of loneliness or financial stress. Underlying behavioral contributors, like domestic violence and alcoholism, also may increase.

The pandemic will cause distress and leave many people vulnerable to mental health problems and suicidal behavior.

In 2018, the most recent year for which data is available (note this article was written May 2020), more than 48,000 Americans died by suicide, according to the Centers for Disease Control, ranking it the country's 10th-leading cause of death. And while many countries have seen their suicide rates decline in recent years, in the U.S. the rate has increased 35% since 1999, from 10.5 deaths per 100,000 people to 14.2, an alarming rise that's also prompted a call to action among health professionals.

The suicide rate in the United States also rose significantly in the first few years following the 2008 Great Recession, as millions of Americans faced a new level of financial hardship.

Suicide data is also notoriously slow to materialize, meaning it will likely be years before hard numbers are available on the number of deaths by suicide during the early months of COVID-19.​

Again, note this article was written May 2020, and they're saying the most recent year for which reliable suicide data statistics are available is 2018.
There's obviously a fairly big lag time between when it happens and when all the data is compiled together and available.

"From where we sit, it's just really hard to know about the deaths," says Jane Pearson, chair of the Suicide Research Consortium at the National Institute of Mental Health. Some suicide crisis lines, including in the San Francisco Bay Area, have reported a surge in calls during the pandemic.​

https://www.usnews.com/news/healthi...-of-suicides-tied-to-the-coronavirus-pandemic


related thread: ‘A Year’s Worth of Suicide Attempts in the Last Four Weeks’: California Doctor Calls for End to Lock

And it looks like the suicide rate has risen dramatically even before this pandemic began:
US suicide rate has risen dramatically


I imagine the rising unemployment caused by the forced shutdown of businesses is not going to help matters. As you all know, governors across the states had ordered "non-essential" businesses to close down to try to slow the spread of the disease. Those who will be hit the hardest by this are the most vulnerable, lower paid workers in the service industry. (whereas many office and information workers have been able to work remotely from home from their computer)

The reduced amount of social interaction, caused by public events closing down, and public places being closed, is likely also placing increased stress on some people, with many people feeling "trapped in their homes".

The news coverage is creating a great deal of anxiety as well, whether warranted or not. The combination of people being stuck in their homes and watching distressing news coverage all day (with nothing better to do other than watching television) could turn out to be a deadly combination, when it comes to suicide statistics.

 

Another example of why the government should never have the power to force people to close their business and stay home. There is a saying about trading liberty for safety.

 

Likely the additional number of people who end up dying by suicide will turn out to be greater than the actual number of deaths caused by the virus.

However, as the article says, it takes a fairly long time to put together all the statistics and find out what the numbers actually are.
We likely won't have a very definitive answer to that until 2 years from now.

 

Its sad. Keep in mind that we have record use of psychiatric drugs that list "suicidal thoughts or actions" as common side effects. Obamacare helped get people on these drugs. Nothing can be more harmful than a powerful government with good intentions.

 

Wouldn't be surprising if it stirred some of the recent actions, huh?

 

I'd be curious on what the statistics are for Obamacare loading Black people up on Happy pills.

 

I recently looked it up, and I couldn’ find March/April 2020 suicide rates, and most likely, has yet been published by......I’m guessing, the CDC.

Thus, why create a thread based on assumptions?

 

Because typically no one will consider this news 2 years after the fact.

Same reason society mostly ignored the sky high increase in suicide rates (+25%) during the Recession, because the exact statistics were not available until much later.

 

I've noticed people in these threads typically avoid topics such as suicide like the plague. Not just suicides, topics of homelessness and poverty as well.
Maybe they are just Debbie Downers, and most people tend to naturally avoid wanting to think about such issues?

One wonders then if these are also issues that tend to get ignored and sidelined in society. Because people in society have an innate tendency to want to push it out of sight, out of mind.

 

I see the probability of "excess suicides" outpacing the number of deaths directly created by this virus as extremely unlikely. Given the number of suicides in your OP from the year 2018 (~48,000), you would need to see an increase of around 300% for the excess suicides to even match the current dead from covid-19.

But in the end, I don't see how it makes any sense to blame those extra suicides on anything other than the virus itself or perhaps the failure to more rapidly control its spread.

 

The current actual death toll from covid-19 is much lower. Right now they are counting anyone who happened to die when they also tested positive for coronavirus.

As you may know, testing positive for coronavirus does not necessarily mean they have covid-19, and dying while having a coronavirus (even covid-19) does not necessarily mean the coronavirus was the cause, or even primary cause, that killed them, especially among the geriatric population.
In an average year, influenza alone (a relatively common disease) ends up killing about 12,000 elderly people. Their bodies are very much not in the best health, they may already have underlying respiratory problems to begin with, and it does not take much to push them over the edge.

I would say that with the current pandemic, the number who actually has died due to the covid-19 virus is not all that much greater than the usual normal number who die of influenza each year.
(Of course it has a deadlier potential and could spread, which is why so many precautions have been taken with this virus, but I am just talking about strictly in terms of the numbers in the current statistics)

Much like the suicide statistics, we may not have a good idea of the number who probably actually died from covid-19 until much later, two or three years from now after it is all over, after everything is all sorted out.

 

If a medical examiner has a good faith and reasonable belief that the covid-19 was a factor in the death of the individual, then it is entirely appropriate to count that person as a covid-19 death. There are multiple studies about the health of the average victim and nearly all of these people would have survived, but for the covid-19. One study found that the average loss of life was 11-13 years.

And if you look at the excess deaths in the areas hardest hit by covid-19 and compare those to the average deaths for the same time and place, you very quickly reach the conclusion that we are probably undercounting covid-19 deaths at the moment.

Finally, you reference the number of deaths from influenza, but did you know that if we counted influenza deaths in the same way that we count covid-19 deaths, then the single deadliest year of the flu killed around 15,500 Americans?

 

That really depends. To count them for what purpose ?

Very oftentimes medical examiners do not know for sure and are just using their best guess. That doesn't always mean these causes of death should automatically be accepted for all statistical purposes.

It's a little off-topic, but I was just having a discussion with some members in another forum, and we were talking about cases where the medical examiner writes that the death was a suicide, and then usually that no further investigation ever takes place after that, even in situations where it later turns out it obviously wasn't a suicide. I was discussing how medical examiners have a great deal of sway, and seldom are their determinations ever questioned.

 

A long time ago, I got a very dark period of my life and had to take such medications. You get an increase of suicide thought especially around the third week, however after that the drug was very efficient, and all of my suicidal though disappeared. It was quite impressive to me as I had those for a few years. I had the luck to be able to go into a hospital to be protected during that third week crisis.
Antidepressant helped me for a while, but I'm glad to get ridd of it.

I'm very skeptical about doctors giving those drugs without any closer monitoring. If someone experience heavy depression, I suppose it's necessary to use such drugs, but that third week peak of suicide though is extremly dangerous.

@kazenatsu Suicide is almost only a boy/men issue. That's why you don't have a lot of interest to solve the problem. Young boys never commited suicide at this rate during history of USA, that happens at the wokiest woke part of history.
At that level, both left wing, right wing show no interest in that.
I sometimes wonder if government don't fight suicide because it benefit them. A lot of people who commit suicide are males around 40/50, a lot of them worked all their life, payed taxe, and when they will start to be more a cost than a benefit, they kill themselves.
Is the lack of action by governments caused by disregard or cynical choices ?

 

No, that point seems entirely relevant. Unless there is a reason to really delve into the cause of death (i.e. criminal investigation or civil lawsuit), then there is very little reason to ever dispute the determination of the examiner. On the other side though, the possibility of getting sued, investigated, or losing a license also provides a great deal of incentive for the examiner to not fabricate his opinion regarding the cause of death.

But when you address the purpose of the covid-19 death diagnosis, I suppose the reason is to get a better understanding of the threat posed by the virus. And I get that there can be some dispute over the exact percentage of contribution to a person's death, but consider your original prediction regarding suicides outnumbering covid-19 deaths. Suicides are very rarely the result of one factor either. A great many of these individuals have years worth of depression, anxiety, etc. that came to exist long before any covid-19 related affects might have pushed them over the edge. So, while it is entirely possible to expect more suicides as the result of covid-19, both direct and indirect, it makes very little sense to try and split the hairs and discern what percentage of those suicides was caused by the pandemic control measures as opposed to the virus itself as opposed to the years or decades of history that might have also played a role in that suicide.

 

Over time, drugs become less effective. They either up the dose or add more meds. (Ask your doctor if abilify is right for you) Im glad you're off meds and hope you spend time surrounded by people you love and work hard to achieve your dreams. That has been the best cure for depression in my experience.

 

I can't say, I gradually managed to do that. I'm very luck about my family, they're wonderfull people and I have amazing friends.
It's not always easy to deal with my autism, but I can say I'm fine.

 

speech is being censored because they would say things like they were weak minded

 

You're making an equivalence fallacy. Making an argument that one thing exists (which is true), but then using that to automatically imply something else.
The issue is that words can have subtly different meanings in different contexts. In this case, we are talking about "cause of death" and "determinations".
Just because a something is true in one situation does not mean we should automatically assume it to be true in a different sort of situation.
I am not content to just automatically rely on the "determinations" of individual medical examiners when looking at statistics for the determination of making political policies.

The truth is these medical examiners simply don't know. They are just relying on available information, and making an assumption. There's strong reason to believe the "reported" covid-19 deaths are drastically over-inflated, statistically speaking.

Anyway, I think we have other threads debating this.

 

You are an inspiration!

 

I had a doctor's appointment today and was talking to the nurse. She said that she is very concerned about the elderly people in assisted living apartments near her. The staff is down to minimal and they won't allow face-to-face conversations so residents have to write their questions/concerns and submit them. Some of the residents are doing okay; however, she said many of the more social residents are having a VERY hard time. They can't go down to meet neighbors over a cup of coffee, do crafts or even sit to watch a movie together. It's really bad out there for people that are shut-in. I hope none of them resort to suicide as those of us willing to visit with them aren't allowed inside the building.

 

One indicator that doesn't bode as a good sign, the Air Force has noted that suicide deaths among active duty reservists increased by 33% in 2019, compared to the previous year. That represents a huge sudden increase. Most of these active reservists are young men.

https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/...eaths-by-suicide-spiked-by-one-third-in-2019/

 

I suspect the election of President Trump in 2016 created far more mental disturbance issues among many than anything the Chinese virus could have wrought.
Keep your stocks in the pharmaceutical industry. Especially those that specialize in anti-depression meds.

 

Ironically and paradoxically, anti-depression meds are believed to be responsible for much of the increase in suicides.

It's sort of the same with alcohol or any other drugs that numb pain.

 

And for those people the lockdown was absolutely essential. And having a HARD lockdown makes the who thing SHORTER in time....meaning that these at risk folks won't be isolated for the REST OF THEIR LIVES....

THERE is the real suicide risk