Hope During the Pandemic: Suicide Rates Fall, Not Rise

Despite the isolation, anxiety, and depression caused by the corona lockdown, death by suicide in the United States has gone down in 2020 for the third consecutive year.

“People were reaching out and using the national mental health crisis hotline, which is a positive thing and likely made a difference for some,” says Benjamin Miller, chief strategy officer of Well Being Trust.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the number of suicides – the eleventh cause of death in 2020 – went from 47,511 in 2019 to 44,834 last year, a drop that happily surprised critics who predicted the pandemic to have an opposite effect.