1
1
All of the data is clearly not in. However, with some rudimentary searching you can already see the amount of suicide reports skyrocketing in publications online. We cannot give you an exact percentage or number of increased suicides, but we can conclude the number of suicide reports have significantly increased in April of 2020 to a number much higher than any month ever seen before.
Since the data for the true recorded deaths by suicide is a far way from being gathered, analyzed and released to the public, I decided to innovate and find what I could. I figured if the amount of suicides were changing, then the amount of news publications reporting these suicides would correlate with that change.
The results I found were astonishing.
As of April 27th, 2020 there have already been 347,000 news reports published on “suicide”. Is this normal? No. I checked the past few years and saw every year there has been an increase.
Last year, for the entire month of April, 2019 there were only about 180,000 reports on suicide published.
In April of 2018, there were only about 96,500 reports on suicide published online.
Going back another year to April, 2017, you can see only 22,600 news publications in the results.
Where Did This Suicide Data Come From?
This data was found on the Google News publication syndicate.
If you perform a custom date range search on Google News you will see that the recorded amount of results disappears and the date range takes its place as depicted below.
However, if you simply right click and “view the source code” you can reveal once again the amount of search results for your search. For example, you can view the search data for “Suicide” in April, 2020 in the source code of the result page below.
Without A Doubt, The Number Of News Reports On “Suicide” Is Rising Fast.
We should all understand this is only one source of news publications, and there are far more reports being published worldwide.
This however is a strong indicator and cohort of data, based on the most prevalent news publications on the internet (those published in Google News). Google News has also been a growing platform and that in and of itself is going to skew the data because Google is constantly recruiting new publications. There is no doubt however, that all of these increases are not due to new publications.
How do I know this isn’t a reflection of Google News growing in size? If you look at the amount of news publications for March (98,000 results), February (126,000 results), and January (277,000 results) of 2020 you see a huge increase leading into April. All of the preceding months are under well under 347,000 reports and April isn’t over yet.
After doing several searches, I have yet to find another month as high as April 2020. Search for yourself and see. December 2019 (229,000 results), November 2019 (237,000 results), October 2019 (80,300 results).
What Has Caused Suicide Reports To Rise Significantly in April of 2020?
I firmly believe the spike in suicide reports is a reflection of actual suicides being committed by depressed and confused people around the world. Our global society has been under an immense amount of emotional pressure and psychological warfare during this coronavirus pandemic.
Suicide has been on the rise at a constant rate for the past 13 years according to a recent report by the Economist.
“This makes suicide the tenth-biggest cause of death in the United States—deadlier than traffic accidents and homicide.“
The Economist – https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/01/30/americas-suicide-rate-has-increased-for-13-years-in-a-row
News agencies worldwide are reporting non-stop on the chaos and potential harm, foul, pain, death, etc… caused from this illness. There are definitely newsworthy events related to the coronavirus to report on, but the amount of fear-mongering from CNN, CBS, MSNBC and others partake in, has become factually harmful to society.
Today or in the near future, there may even be a legal ramification to prevent the harm caused from fear mongering news agencies. If we get enough data together, we could potentially prompt a change through the justice system.
I wouldn’t doubt that in a comparison of countries where negative crisis reports are higher, the suicide rates are higher.
The governments around the world have all responded to this pandemic with tighter regulations and more strict guidelines than ever before. No doubt, our own governments are also at fault here. There are millions of people on complete lock down, unable to live their lives, unable to leave their homes and this is the direct cause of this increase. It is unknowable exactly how many suicides have been caused by the global lock-downs or “shelter-in-place” orders.
Could We Have Seen This Rise In Suicides Coming?
One thing is for sure, our President Donald Trump warned us of this in the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. His exact words were, “We can’t have the cure be worse than the problem.” It seems the numbers are rolling in and we will soon find out if that is the case. With millions still in isolation and the unemployment rate surging past 20% the amount of depressed individuals is only rising. Let’s hope this all ends as soon as possible.
Trump Warned Of “Massive Suicides”
As you can see, Mr. Trump was not afraid to point out that the decision to shut down the American economy was going to cause “tremendous suicides”, and “massive depression” and “drug addiction”.
May God be with you all. And may you all maintain a healthy and clear mind. Remember the societal changes we are going through are only a reaction to the current crisis and we all will adapt as things ebb and flow back to normalcy.
SOURCES
- Google.com/news
- https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/01/30/americas-suicide-rate-has-increased-for-13-years-in-a-row
- https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/03/24/trump_we_cant_have_the_cure_be_worse_than_the_problem_142750.html
- https://fortune.com/2020/04/23/us-unemployment-rate-numbers-claims-this-week-total-job-losses-april-23-2020-benefits-claims/
- [Image] https://unsplash.com/@evablue
Average Rating