Judge Deborah Marshall released the figures to June 30, 2021, which show 607 people died by suspected suicide, compared to 628 the year before - a decrease of 21 deaths and a drop in the suspected suicide rate from 11.8 deaths per 100,000 to 11.6.
When I speak to health professionals working in the field and say, "Did you know that there were fewer suicides since the beginning of the pandemic than the year before?" the answer is typically this: "That's BS!"
Anybody who works at the coal-face of mental health and not in the pocket of you-know-who will tell you that suicides have to be up. So, how come they are going down and not up, as expected? I did reach out to a prominent suicide campaigner for comment for this article but strangely, there has been silence.
A wise and knowledgeable person in the field of suicide explained what he thinks is going on with these statistics: when contemplating ending their life, they will typically seek fortitude in a substantial swig of alcohol. However, when deciding on the cause of death, guess which way the pendulum is swinging these days? You guessed right: if there is alcohol in the deceased's system and there is an element of doubt about the cause of death, it is "alcohol-related" and buried among all other alcohol-related fatalities.
Problem solved!
Officially, it appears that lockdowns, concealing faces, marginalising the unvaccinated, destroying and other measures to keep us safe is good for our mental health!
Here is a fabulous article that deftly avoids the contribution of mass-fear-mongering to anxiety, depression and suicide: