[BostonCard]

I don't understand why this is such a difficult concept to grasp.  When people are most out of work, they're more likely to commit suicide.  Why can't we understand that?

Mick, it is not a difficult concept to grasp (which is why I started my response with "I would not be surprise that suicides went up after the great recession").  It makes intuitive sense.  What I was trying to explore is the magnitude of the effect (and also whether it was appropriate to compare 2010 to 2006 and attribute the difference in suicide rates to the great recession).

The number of excess deaths matter.  You could envision a situation where the number of deaths caused by the slowdown was actually greater than the number of deaths directly attributable to coronavirus (regardless of whether these stemmed from policy or generalized fear).  You could also imagine a scenario where the number of suicides was lower than the number of suicides that you would save with moderate restrictions on gun sales; as a society we've decided that those restrictions are not worth the lives saved.

There are also possible knock on effects on health, though I saw 2006's post suggesting that non-suicide deaths go down.  Here's one article with an estimate (no sources cited):

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/24/busin...74f24220a2

every loss of income of $100 million in the economy causes one additional death.

That suggests that a 5% hit to GDP (sustained over a year), which would result in the loss of approximately $1 trillion, would cause the loss of 10,000 lives.  A bigger loss to GDP (say 10% sustained over a year) would lead to 20,000 lives lost.  Coronavirus has already killed 1,477 Americans.

BC

[BostonCard]

I don't understand why this is such a difficult concept to grasp.  When people are most out of work, they're more likely to commit suicide.  Why can't we understand that?

Mick, it is not a difficult concept to grasp (which is why I started my response with "I would not be surprise that suicides went up after the great recession").  It makes intuitive sense.  What I was trying to explore is the magnitude of the effect (and also whether it was appropriate to compare 2010 to 2006 and attribute the difference in suicide rates to the great recession).

The number of excess deaths matter.  You could envision a situation where the number of deaths caused by the slowdown was actually greater than the number of deaths directly attributable to coronavirus (regardless of whether these stemmed from policy or generalized fear).  You could also imagine a scenario where the number of suicides was lower than the number of suicides that you would save with moderate restrictions on gun sales; as a society we've decided that those restrictions are not worth the lives saved.

There are also possible knock on effects on health, though I saw 2006's post suggesting that non-suicide deaths go down.  Here's one article with an estimate (no sources cited):

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/24/busin...74f24220a2

every loss of income of $100 million in the economy causes one additional death.

That suggests that a 5% hit to GDP (sustained over a year), which would result in the loss of approximately $1 trillion, would cause the loss of 10,000 lives.  A bigger loss to GDP (say 10% sustained over a year) would lead to 20,000 lives lost.  Coronavirus has already killed 1,477 Americans.

BC