Despite repeated baseless claims by GOP pundits and politicians that the public health recommendation to stay isolated issued to stop the spread of the coronavirus was leading to a spike in suicides, the number of Americans who took their own lives in 2020 dropped by 6%, the Associated Press reports.
The reduction was the largest decline in suicides in at least the last four decades. The reduction was credited to an increase in mental health services available through health insurance and community resources. Some claim that it was due to a phenomenon called the “heroism syndrome” that hits during disasters.
“There’s a heroism phase in every disaster period, where we’re banding together and expressing lots of messages of support that we’re in this together,” said Dr. Christine Moutier, chief medical officer of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. “You saw that, at least in the early months of the pandemic.”
During an August 5th press briefing, Donald Trump declared, “Prolonged lockdowns imposed a wide range of serious public health threats, including higher levels of suicide, drug overdoses and other significant health harms resulting from the depression that we talked about.”
It turns out, he was wrong. The number of suicides in the US dropped to below 45,000 for the first time since 2015.