[0xy]

Don't take this the wrong way, but did you read your own source? It literally proves my point.

>"We still think we're going to see, over the course of a 12-month period … and then subsequent years, in the order of 30 per cent increase [in] suicide rates," he said.

30% of 3,048 is 914. 5 years of that is 4,572 additional suicides. I got the 5 years data point from the Australian Medical Association. [1]

[1] https://ama.com.au/media/joint-statement-covid-19-impact-lik...

[howlgarnish]

By what mechanism does a lockdown ending in 2020 cause 30% spike in suicides in 2024?

[0xy]

Assuming this is a genuine question, thousands of businesses and lives have been irreparably destroyed. Suicide can take years to manifest after trauma. It's also worth noting that a lot of people have been temporarily propped up by government social programs, which will presumably end at some point. Once they do end, the destruction is no longer hideable and the people who have been made destitute by government mandates will have absolutely nothing.

A restaurant owner who saved their entire life to open up a business was forced to shut down for the greater part of a year with inadequate government support. Of course that causes depression and even suicide in some cases. Their life's work has been eviscerated through no fault of their own.

During the lockdown, the government's message was essentially "do not open your business by threat of enforcement action, but by the way you have to keep paying your rent/mortgage and we're going to give you a token amount of money to help".

While this was happening, governments around the world were throwing cash at banks and big business. Small businesses got screwed. As usual.

As for the specific medical reasoning, I'm no medical professional and would not pretend to know how the Australian Medical Association comes up with their claims.

If you were questioning the source, I'd implore you to post counter-evidence.

[matwood]

> irreparably destroyed

Irreparably? Using restaurants is a terrible metric since most of those fail even in a booming economy. I think restaurants and hospitality will be one of the fastest areas to recover once people feel it's safe.

[rswail]

There was more than "token" support for small businesses. There was Federal government support for maintaining employment and there were bank and commercial lease supports. In addition, the state government provided loans and direct funding to various industries.

Remember that Australia has not had a financial recession for 25+ years. Recession for any reason causes bankruptcies which leads to those personal impacts.

But the lockdown has meant that our economy will be closer back to "normal" earlier than it would have been. Our primary markets in Asia (in particular China) are all recovering rapidly.

So not sure what your argument is here. Yes, all of the effects you state are correct. However, what was the alternative?

[0xy]

You seem to be missing the point. That support was inefficient because government action still crushed thousands of businesses despite the support available.

Some of these restaurants had $20,000/week expenses and the government was offering significantly less than that in support.

>But the lockdown has meant that our economy will be closer back to "normal" earlier than it would have been

That sounds like wild speculation. Thousands of businesses closed permanently. Sure, giant banks and huge corporations that were specifically bailed out by government will be more-or-less fine. But that family restaurant? They went out of business months ago.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08-10/melbourne-second-coro...

But all that is beside the point, which was suicides from lockdown effects will be substantially higher than virus deaths currently, according to Australian Medical Association modelling. I don't think you attempted to refute that with any counter-evidence (beyond your speculation).

[amanaplanacanal]

Likely many of those businesses would have closed anyway, even without the lockdown, just from people avoiding crowded areas because they don’t want to get sick.

[jonsno56]

Bro no offense but you are boohooing because your life sucks in America. Competent governments can actually fix this problem of COVID