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It's important to realise there's a lag with suicide statistics, and most of the research is looking at early days, and all of the researchers are saying that distress is up and we need to guard against a rise in future. Here's Prof Louis Appleby, clinical lead for suicide prevention in England. https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/03/10/louis-appleby-what-has-... > A year into the pandemic, what is the evidence? The short answer is that there has been little effect. But it’s more complex than that, as it always is with suicide statistics. > First though, it’s important to stress that the graphs and figures that are used to answer this question are not dry data. They represent real lives lost, real families devastated. No suicide rate, whether high or low, rising or falling, is acceptable. Even before covid-19, there were over 6000 deaths by suicide per year in the UK, an estimated 800,000 worldwide. [...] > Our conclusions at this stage, however, should be cautious. These are early findings and may change. Beneath the overall numbers there may be variations between demographic groups or geographical areas. After all, the impact of covid-19 itself has not been uniform across communities. |