Is COVID-19 Causing Suicides?

Why coronavirus and suicide is a more difficult question to answer than you might’ve heard

Pictured: Stock photo results for “sad”. Very blue. Source: Pexels

Note: This is a difficult topic for many. If this blog raises any issues for you, here is a list of resources that may be able to help.

As someone who has been depressed, and knows what it’s like to consider taking your own life, the topic of suicide is one that I am naturally very interested in. It’s also a notoriously complex issue, with suicide influenced by a huge number of societal issues. Everything from house prices to pesticide sales has been shown to influence the rate at which people kill themselves, which is a pretty startling finding when you think about it.

This article is going to be pretty depressing, so here’s a kitten to cheer you up. Source: Pexels

Which brings us to the coronavirus. Given the enormous impact that COVID-19 has had on our lives, people have been arguing across the world that suicides will be on the rise in these times. Many have specifically tied the idea of government lockdowns to suicides, saying that we must protect mental health. On the flipside of that argument, some are worried that catching the virus itself might cause people who get it to deteriorate, which adds yet another layer…