TTB - General Discussion, page-190

New data from the Victorian State Coroner released today states there has been no increase in suicides (in-fact two fewer) than the same period as last year. I would say that likely the number Australia wide is pretty consistent with yearly suicide rates (but would also say they likely pulled that 1000 number out of their a*** for shock value). It was originally predicted that we would see a 25% increase in the rate of suicides, but thankfully that was not the case.

Perhaps something interesting to note is that in Victoria there has been a 33% increase in young people presenting to emergency departments for intentional self-harm over the past 6 weeks, and a 10% increase in people of all ages (compared to the same period in 2019). Additionally, clinical mental health services have seen an increase in numbers from people who have not accessed clinical mental health in the past five years. Generally across the board we are seeing statistically significant numbers of individuals reaching out for help with their mental health.

This is not to say that suicides due to the pandemic aren't occurring, more that they aren't occurring at the rate that was predicted and that a lot of viral Facebook posts are claiming (I appreciate you saying that the post above wasn't fact checked).

In summary of all this, people are suffering mentally due to the pandemic, and there is solid data to back that up. The positive of this is that there is a significant increase in individuals seeking help rather than suffering in silence. These statistics are supporting increased funding to the mental health sector worldwide, as well as making this less of a taboo subject.