6 ms·

Suicide claimed more Japanese lives in October than 10 months of Covid

68 points by cinquemb 6y ago

paulyy_y 6y ago
Isolation and curtailing the ability to socialize tends to do that. May take a while to fully realize but I bet the ramifications related to mental and emotional well-being will be severe, not even getting into the drug and alcohol abuse addictions that were borne/rekindled during this pandemic.
fxtentacle 6y ago
Clickbait? The number went up from 1500 last year to 2100 this year, so not a strong increase in absolute terms. And the only reason why that's more than the Coronavirus deaths is because they have managed the pandemic quite well so far, like - it seems - most Asian countries do. To put things into perspective, the monthly suicides in Japan from all reasons combined is about the same number as 4% of the monthly US coronavirus deaths. So while sad, Japan increasing their suicide rate by about 0.005% of their population per year sounds like a good tradeoff against risking a >1% death rate.
- anfilt 6y ago
  That was just for one month though. 1500 last october vs 2100 this October. 2100 is a 40% increase over 1500. That's a pretty drastic change especially when the trend was downward.
  - fxtentacle 6y ago
    If you focus on the absolute rate, going from 0.002% to 0.005% in a year is bad, but you still have a lot of runway before it becomes the worse choice. I mean of course the lockdown is bad for mental health. But the article (in my opinion) presents is as if Japan made a bad decision. But based on the numbers that are available, their decision was better than the alternative.
    - Kiro 6y ago
      Japan never had any lockdown so not sure what alternative you're talking about. There's no decision causing this. Sounds like you defensively interpreted this as an argument against lockdowns and started downplaying the numbers for no reason at all.
      - fxtentacle 6y ago
        They called it "state of emergency" and "government advice to avoid the 3 Cs". It's not a full lockdown, but it clearly modified people's behavior in a way that reduced covid spread while increasing loneliness.
- PrefixKitten 6y ago
  Uh, what? They're apparently fucking not managing the actual pandemic well since any given citizen is at a higher risk of dying of suicide than of covid...
- 9HZZRfNlpR 6y ago
  Hmm, I've read it as suicide is a bigger problem for them that doesn't get the attention needed than suicides spike because of x corona measures (that have been rather light weight compared to western world).
  - fxtentacle 6y ago
    In my opinion, suicide has been a proben in Japan for a long time. It's probably the same underlying issue as Hikkomori and Grasseaters, namely that young men fail to secure their place in the economy, due to the latter being stagnant. There's also people faking their suicide so that they can live an unsuccessful life without their family publicly losing face. Plus a typical saying is "if a nail sticks out, hit it harder" so I'm not sure you would get community consent for helping the oddballs. At least not from the elderly, most of whom feel like they were the ones who had it though when rebuilding everything after the wars... which led to insane economic growth and a boom of opportunities for them. So not sure it's correct, but the idea that the elderly worked hard and the youngsters are just lazy is very persuasive. So problems facing the young tend to get less attention by politicians.
- raxxorrax 6y ago
  That is a 40% increase in absolute terms...
strogonoff 6y ago
Female cases are at 1/3 of male, but have surged much more significantly. > Women, who have primary responsibility for childcare, have borne the brunt of pandemic-induced job losses and insecurity. They're also at greater risk of domestic violence, which help centers say has worsened here this year, as it has around the world. Lockdowns might be justified in larger context, and at its core the issue of domestic abuse is orthogonal to health and safety measures, but let’s remember the silent victims (regardless of gender) around the world who during lockdowns (whether soft or hard) are likely suffering more. Edited first paragraph since thankfully I have misread the statistic, but I stand by the sentiment.
- melq 6y ago
  >October self-inflicted deaths were up 600 year on year, with female suicides, about a third of the total, surging over 80%. Not quite, about 1/3rd are women, which is 80% higher than last year. Still troubling regardless, of course.
  - strogonoff 6y ago
    I stand corrected.
- howlgarnish 6y ago
  Japan hasn't really locked down in any real sense of the word though: some local governments have "encouraged" businesses to close, but there are essentially no legal levers to force them to do, much less require people to stay at home. https://asia.nikkei.com/Editor-s-Picks/Interview/Tokyo-governor-says-lockdown-in-Japan-is-impossible https://asia.nikkei.com/Editor-s-Picks/Interview/Tokyo-gover... The one thing governments did do was close schools, which wreaked havoc on single parents and dual income families. The complete decimation of the tourist industry plus people staying at home due to general fear of the virus have also caused considerable economic damage, hence the job losses and insecurity.
  - strogonoff 6y ago
    Soft lockdowns are a problem, too: if the abuser in your home suddenly starts working remotely and is at home 95% of the time, arguably that’s not significantly different from a full lockdown with restricted freedom of movement.
lota-putty 6y ago
Hopelessness, I suppose. Also, these people are very sensitive & even wiser. If these people can be identified, perhaps they can be relocated to favourable new environments to face challenges. By the same cbsnews: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/unintentional-shootings-guns-kids-sales-coronavirus-lockdowns/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/unintentional-shootings-guns-ki... Did you see the difference?
smaryjerry 6y ago
This isn’t too unexpected. Even in the US with heart disease killing millions and COVID killing a couple hundred thousand over the same time period they still decide that locking down gyms is for the best.
- Bancakes 6y ago
  You can get a good training session at home. If only health was contagious.
- op00to 6y ago
  Why do gyms need to be open?
  - atomi 6y ago
    Because it personally effects this person.
WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
Suicide isn't a single factor event. However, it's our tendency to try to isolate just one factor and then pin a suicide to that. If we get good at identifying & gauging common forces that drive people to suicide, I suspect we'll find huge swaths of populations that live their lives 80% of the way there.
dmarchand90 6y ago
It's an interesting statistic. More than anything it shows to me how covid was exceptionally managed in Japan relative to other countries.

68 points by cinquemb 6y ago

Isolation and curtailing the ability to socialize tends to do that. May take a while to fully realize but I bet the ramifications related to mental and emotional well-being will be severe, not even getting into the drug and alcohol abuse addictions that were borne/rekindled during this pandemic.

fxtentacle 6y ago

Clickbait? The number went up from 1500 last year to 2100 this year, so not a strong increase in absolute terms. And the only reason why that's more than the Coronavirus deaths is because they have managed the pandemic quite well so far, like - it seems - most Asian countries do. To put things into perspective, the monthly suicides in Japan from all reasons combined is about the same number as 4% of the monthly US coronavirus deaths. So while sad, Japan increasing their suicide rate by about 0.005% of their population per year sounds like a good tradeoff against risking a >1% death rate.

anfilt 6y ago
That was just for one month though. 1500 last october vs 2100 this October. 2100 is a 40% increase over 1500. That's a pretty drastic change especially when the trend was downward.
- fxtentacle 6y ago
  If you focus on the absolute rate, going from 0.002% to 0.005% in a year is bad, but you still have a lot of runway before it becomes the worse choice. I mean of course the lockdown is bad for mental health. But the article (in my opinion) presents is as if Japan made a bad decision. But based on the numbers that are available, their decision was better than the alternative.
  - Kiro 6y ago
    Japan never had any lockdown so not sure what alternative you're talking about. There's no decision causing this. Sounds like you defensively interpreted this as an argument against lockdowns and started downplaying the numbers for no reason at all.
    - fxtentacle 6y ago
      They called it "state of emergency" and "government advice to avoid the 3 Cs". It's not a full lockdown, but it clearly modified people's behavior in a way that reduced covid spread while increasing loneliness.
PrefixKitten 6y ago
Uh, what? They're apparently fucking not managing the actual pandemic well since any given citizen is at a higher risk of dying of suicide than of covid...
9HZZRfNlpR 6y ago
Hmm, I've read it as suicide is a bigger problem for them that doesn't get the attention needed than suicides spike because of x corona measures (that have been rather light weight compared to western world).
- fxtentacle 6y ago
  In my opinion, suicide has been a proben in Japan for a long time. It's probably the same underlying issue as Hikkomori and Grasseaters, namely that young men fail to secure their place in the economy, due to the latter being stagnant. There's also people faking their suicide so that they can live an unsuccessful life without their family publicly losing face. Plus a typical saying is "if a nail sticks out, hit it harder" so I'm not sure you would get community consent for helping the oddballs. At least not from the elderly, most of whom feel like they were the ones who had it though when rebuilding everything after the wars... which led to insane economic growth and a boom of opportunities for them. So not sure it's correct, but the idea that the elderly worked hard and the youngsters are just lazy is very persuasive. So problems facing the young tend to get less attention by politicians.
raxxorrax 6y ago
That is a 40% increase in absolute terms...

strogonoff 6y ago

Female cases are at 1/3 of male, but have surged much more significantly. > Women, who have primary responsibility for childcare, have borne the brunt of pandemic-induced job losses and insecurity. They're also at greater risk of domestic violence, which help centers say has worsened here this year, as it has around the world. Lockdowns might be justified in larger context, and at its core the issue of domestic abuse is orthogonal to health and safety measures, but let’s remember the silent victims (regardless of gender) around the world who during lockdowns (whether soft or hard) are likely suffering more. Edited first paragraph since thankfully I have misread the statistic, but I stand by the sentiment.

melq 6y ago
>October self-inflicted deaths were up 600 year on year, with female suicides, about a third of the total, surging over 80%. Not quite, about 1/3rd are women, which is 80% higher than last year. Still troubling regardless, of course.
- strogonoff 6y ago
  I stand corrected.
howlgarnish 6y ago
Japan hasn't really locked down in any real sense of the word though: some local governments have "encouraged" businesses to close, but there are essentially no legal levers to force them to do, much less require people to stay at home. https://asia.nikkei.com/Editor-s-Picks/Interview/Tokyo-governor-says-lockdown-in-Japan-is-impossible https://asia.nikkei.com/Editor-s-Picks/Interview/Tokyo-gover... The one thing governments did do was close schools, which wreaked havoc on single parents and dual income families. The complete decimation of the tourist industry plus people staying at home due to general fear of the virus have also caused considerable economic damage, hence the job losses and insecurity.
- strogonoff 6y ago
  Soft lockdowns are a problem, too: if the abuser in your home suddenly starts working remotely and is at home 95% of the time, arguably that’s not significantly different from a full lockdown with restricted freedom of movement.

lota-putty 6y ago

Hopelessness, I suppose. Also, these people are very sensitive & even wiser. If these people can be identified, perhaps they can be relocated to favourable new environments to face challenges. By the same cbsnews: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/unintentional-shootings-guns-kids-sales-coronavirus-lockdowns/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/unintentional-shootings-guns-ki... Did you see the difference?

smaryjerry 6y ago

This isn’t too unexpected. Even in the US with heart disease killing millions and COVID killing a couple hundred thousand over the same time period they still decide that locking down gyms is for the best.

Bancakes 6y ago
You can get a good training session at home. If only health was contagious.
op00to 6y ago
Why do gyms need to be open?
- atomi 6y ago
  Because it personally effects this person.

WarOnPrivacy 6y ago

Suicide isn't a single factor event. However, it's our tendency to try to isolate just one factor and then pin a suicide to that. If we get good at identifying & gauging common forces that drive people to suicide, I suspect we'll find huge swaths of populations that live their lives 80% of the way there.

dmarchand90 6y ago

It's an interesting statistic. More than anything it shows to me how covid was exceptionally managed in Japan relative to other countries.