Covid-19 and suicide

On July 30 Dr. Robert Redfield warned that Covid -19 has exacerbated the already high suicide rate among the young to such an extent that the numbers of people dead by their own hand during the response to the pandemic is greater than the numbers killed by the virus itself.  “”We’re seeing, sadly, far greater suicides now than we are deaths from COVID,” Redfield explained. “We’re seeing far greater deaths from drug overdose that are above the excess that we had as background than we are seeing the deaths from COVID.””  Make no mistake, drug addiction and drug overdoses are a form of suicide, one is just swifter than the other.

On August 13 the CDC again sounded the alarm on suicide.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one in four young adults say they have contemplated committing suicide in the past month because of the pandemic.

The CDC study analyzed 5,412 survey respondents between June 24 and 30. Of all the respondents, 10.7 percent reported harboring suicidal thoughts in the previous 30 days, while 25.5 percent of those between 18 to 24 reported doing so. Additionally, almost 31 percent of self-reported, unpaid caregivers reported contemplating suicide, and 22 percent of essential workers.

The CDC study also found a rise in anxiety and substance abuse, with more than 40 percent of those surveyed saying they experienced a mental or behavioral health condition connected to the Wuhan coronavirus. Nearly 31 percent of respondents said they had symptoms of anxiety or depression and roughly 26 percent reported trauma and stress-related disorder because of the pandemic. Some 13 percent of participants said they have turned to substance use, including alcohol and prescription or illicit drugs, to cope with stress from the pandemic.

The depressing data gives a grim look at the negative effects of measures taken to address the pandemic like lockdown orders, widely supported by Democrats, and social distancing. Racial minorities also reported higher suicidal thoughts than the general population, with 15.1 percent of blacks and 18.6 percent of Hispanics.

Other potentially negative effects of the pandemic include a rise in sexual and physical abuse, specifically of children. New data shows a surge in calls to the the National Sexual Assault Hotline. Health experts are concerned that children have lost their normal routines and are isolated from friends and trusted adults.

“The stressors these children are facing will have a lifelong effect on their mental and physical health,” said Laura Palumbo, communications director at the National Sexual Violence Resource Center. “A child’s developing brain is heavily impacted by toxic stress, and the more a child’s stress response is activated and prolonged by abuse and the conditions that surround it, the more they suffer.”

It turns out that the cure is worse than the disease.  Most of the stringent measures to combat the WuFlu have been shown to be ineffective at best, and that data is clear and beyond dispute.  The only reason to continue these measures, especially as there are a variety of effective therapeutics available, seems to be for those son inclined to exercise political power and control over a hapless and terrified population.  It is almost as if those kinds of people regard hope for the future as a self-correcting pre-existing condition.