Suicides go up during economic contraction, and we’re now in the mother of all contractions. It’s starting to show up in the suicide statistics. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:
We suggested, at the beginning of April, that a “suicide wave” was imminent considering the economic devastation sparked by COVID-19 lockdowns. In the last nine weeks, 38.6 million Americans have lost their jobs and were thrown into instant poverty. Many were already skating on thin financial ice even before the pandemic, and now they’ve fallen through, drowning in insurmountable debts, no savings, and limited lifelines.
The first signs of a suicide wave could be originating in California. ABC7 News reports doctors and nurses at John Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek, in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, are reporting deaths by suicide far exceed COVID-19 deaths during the pandemic.
The hospital’s top trauma doctor, Dr. Mike deBoisblanc, told ABC7 that mental health has become a major problem during the shelter-in-place order.
