From: Bloomberg Prognosis <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Fri, Nov 5, 2021 at 4:47 AM
Subject: Suicide in the time of Covid

<https://link.mail.bloombergbusiness.com/click/25592304.69889/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuYmxvb21iZXJnLmNvbS9wcm9nbm9zaXM/5e78bcd66fb3a43b32307e1eB6319ddf4>

Covid’s impact on mental health

As the world shut down in 2020, the Covid-19 crisis was shadowed by fears
of the unintended consequences of society’s response. Would the strategies
to reduce the virus’s deadly spread—isolating at home, closing businesses
and schools—lead to increased drinking and drug use, a spike in homicides,
domestic violence or suicide?

Former President Donald Trump cited the risk of increased suicide early on
<https://link.mail.bloombergbusiness.com/click/25592304.69889/aHR0cHM6Ly9hYmNuZXdzLmdvLmNvbS9Qb2xpdGljcy9mYWN0LWNoZWNraW5nLXRydW1wcy1jbGFpbS1zdWljaWRlLXRob3VzYW5kcy1lY29ub21pYy1zaHV0ZG93bi9zdG9yeT9pZD02OTc5MDI3Mw/5e78bcd66fb3a43b32307e1eB5791daaa>
in
pressing to lift mitigation measures, saying in March 2020 that it would
outpace deaths from the virus, even as models predicted unchecked Covid
spread might cause millions of U.S. fatalities.

As statisticians and scholars tally data from that grim year, a new federal
report shows that suicides actually declined in the U.S. compared
with 2019. Even though the upheaval increased risk factors for suicide like
financial stress, the number of Americans who took their own
lives decreased by 3% in 2020, the Centers for Disease Control’s
statistical group reported this week
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.


Suicides had increased steadily this century before peaking in 2018 with
48,000 annual deaths. That number declined slightly in 2019 and continued
to drop in 2020, to less than 46,000, according to the CDC’s provisional
data. In April, when shutdowns were most severe, the U.S. saw the lowest
number of suicides in any month of 2020, 14% below the previous year’s
total that month.

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