The media jeered at Trump for even suggesting that one of the risks associated with shutdowns might include a spike in suicide. And why wouldn’t they? Their jobs are safe. They don’t feel the pinch.
This is the thing that makes elites, well, elites. They’re invited to all the black-tie parties where tight-lipped pleasantries are exchanged between people who don’t like each other.
Not everyone makes deep into six or seven figures a year. Missing a couple of month’s work could devastate many of us financially… if we even have work to go back to.
Retired folks watching a lifetime of savings evaporate wonder how they’ll get by.
Heads of households look at the faces around their table, wondering how they’ll make ends meet.
People who sized up a roaring economy thinking this was the perfect time to take thier shot, sinking everything they had into launching their business slammed into a brick wall in March of 2020.
For some, their options shrink down to few or none. The sad ending of Death of A Salesman begins to beckon to them, while heroes like Suicide help line, and compassionate clergy offer perspective and hopefully different options.
Trump hypothesized there could be ‘suicides by the thousands’ if this shutdown dragged on.
He was scoffed at and fact-checked.
While public health officials warn that dropping social guidelines to boost the economy could quickly overload hospital systems, costing more money and more lives, the president has claimed several times this week that the number of suicides specifically would “definitely” be greater than the death toll from the virus itself as he pointed to people returning to work as a remedy.
“You’re going to lose more people by putting a country into a massive recession or depression.” Trump said Tuesday in a Fox News town hall. “You’re going to lose people. You’re going to have suicides by the thousands.”
One night before, at a coronavirus task force briefing, the president said, “I’m talking about where people suffer massive depression, where people commit suicide, where tremendous death happens… I mean, definitely would be in far greater numbers than the numbers that we’re talking about with regard to the virus.” — ABCNews
That was March 25th when, if memory serves, even the optimistic WuFlu estimates were still pegged somewhere in the neighborhood of 100k-200k deaths.
Here we are in April. Those numbers have come down to 60k or fewer projected… at the cost of throwing Millions of Americans out of work.
Jobs disappearing, businesses shutting down, and separation from friends and family due to COVID-19 have placed an uncomfortable, emotional strain on people. Some describe feelings of unmanageable stress, isolation sadness and thoughts of being trapped or powerless.
With that, Former Congressman Patrick J Kennedy says calls at suicide hotlines have increased by 800 percent as resources shift to COVID-19 relief. The mental health advocate sounded the alarm at a Metro Nashville news conference, raising the question – Will the silent killer of mental illness be our country’s next major crisis?
“The tragedy of COVID is it exacerbates this already prevalent mental health and addiction crisis. No one doubts that mental health and addiction is real,” Kennedy commented. “Every single American has been faced with a mental health issue in this COVID crisis, themselves, not just a family member, but themselves.”
His short answer: yes. Kennedy believes mental illness and addiction crises are right underneath the COVID-19 emergency, not waiting to creep out.
“We ought to be concerned about people dying. Whether they’re dying of the COVID or whether they’re dying of overdose, it’s still a death and there’s not one that’s worse than the other because both deaths rob families and a loved one, and they ought to be paid attention to,” Kennedy said. — Fox17
Anyone honest enough to have looked into the statistics from past economic downturns can quibble about the numbers, but the data is unquestionable. Mental health issues — including suicides — are directly connected to serious economic losses.
Yet another example of ‘journalists’ willing to turn a blind eye to reality in order to score points dunking on Trump.
Yeah, there’s some real ‘journalistic integrity’ for ya!
