CoVid Culture - Is suicide Painless?

I finally found some stats on suicide in Oregon. There was an article in the Oregonian – Oregonians have died at a rate well above the aversive since mid-March (Updated April 29^th as of this writing).  It shows that between MARCH 15^TH to April 19^th 245 Oregonians died from suicide.  On average we usually would have almost 90 in that same period.  That means that 155 more died than what is considered average.  As of this writing (05/26/2020) there have been 148 deaths in total due to SARS CoV 2 (CV19).

Note that there have been no new deaths since Friday May 22^nd and only 22 new cases recorded. 

According to World population Review – Suicide by States Oregon has lost 825 people so far in 2020.  On average Oregon saw 70 suicides a month in 2019.  That would be 350 by the end of May.  Yet we have more than doubled that (about a 230% increase).

The Oregonian article indicated that “It is unclear if other fallout from the pandemic, including fear of seeking health care,” was the cause of this. And that is true, interviewing dead people pose technical difficulties that we have not surmounted. On the other hand the reason folks are afraid to seek medical care is because of the CV19.

But given common factors of suicide we can determine; the economic downturn, social isolation, and other depressive contributing factors that have all been forced on us, it seems unlikely that the restrictions were not at least a contributing factor.  It is known that people who attend Spiritual worship or social events tend to be less likely to commit suicide.

Without question these people were troubled to start with.  That argument indicates that they are less valuable than others.  I for one can’t promote that premise.

Again the question is when is the prevention worse than the disease? It seems to me if we are losing twice as many or more to suicide than CV19 that maybe we passed that point in April.  It is now the end of May. 

Re-opening “everything” does come with its risks.  The original idea was to “reduce the wave” so that our hospitals could keep up.  Hospitals are now closing because they don’t have enough patients to stay open. 

Suicide Prevention Lifeline

There is some hope for a vaccine, though no timeline on that can be promised.  Given what we learned from SARS CoV (The 2002 Corona Strain), that gave us a leg up on the SARS CoV 2 (CV19). But there is still no guarantee.  A Little vaccine history lesson here.

Developing a “herd immunity” at this point may only be achieved through exposure. So when do we start that treatment?

The other costs that can’t be calculated are the labor drought that seems to be starting to show up. With all the stimulus, in some cases, it makes more economic sense for people to stay at home.  These people are the one ones that work mostly for small business.  Small Business employes 80% of the workforce. If they have to raise salaries to attract people, that increases inflation.  Add that to the value of the US Dollar that will eventually drop because we just “Made up” money for the stimulus.

We currently live with SARS, MERS, H3N2 (Hong Kong Flu from the 1968 Pandemic) as well as many others.  We will see many deaths from CV19.  Remember the initial count was in the multimillions in the US alone.  That now seems unlikely.  As states open it will be important to see if the spike that will happen starts to tax our now reduced hospital capacity. But we are on a war footing now.  Those hospitals can be re-opened.  Most states have started to store up capacity for consumable medical supplies that were depleted by earlier administrations on every level.

A question to answer is when is it better to open up?  Now when the weather is getting brighter, and the conditions for spread are as low as they can get? Or wait until fall, when we are all living indoors more and have less exposure to the big bright natural disinfector in the sky (The Sun)?

Governor Kate Brown, How many suicides do you want to be responsible for? 

Gregor - Back from the brink! From there and back again. A spiritual Hobbits journey.