We’ll be moving away from US developments now for a moment.
In Tokyo Olympics news – though there is still no official announcement that the games have been postponed, Japanese Olympics Minister Seiko Hashimoto has told reporters that the world needs to put an end to the coronavirus before the Tokyo Games can be held in their “complete form”.
“I believe the Tokyo Games cannot move toward the ‘complete form’ that the prime minister [Shinzo Abe] has mentioned as long as countries of the world have not put an end to the coronavirus,” Hashimoto said.
“So, it’s first and foremost for us to join forces and respond firmly for putting an end to the coronavirus,” she said.
More now on the stay-home order in Washington state.
Hallie Golden reports for the Guardian:
Calling this the only weapon we have to fight against the virus, WA governor Jay Inslee said during a public address broadcasted online Monday that “the less time you spend out in public, the more lives we can save.”
The order will be in place for a minimum of two weeks and involve a ban on all gatherings and the closure of many businesses, except those deemed essential or those where employees can work remotely. It requires all Washingtonians to minimize social interactions and postpone such events as weddings and funerals.
The announcement came after a weekend full of reports of locals congregating in large groups at parks and standing close to one another in line at coffee shops and restaurants.
On Monday, Washington state health officials confirmed 2,221 cases of coronavirus, including 110 deaths. The majority were reported in King County, which includes Seattle.
Inslee had already banned gatherings of more than 50 people, as well as sit-in service at all food establishments, including restaurants, bars and coffee shops. He also recently announced that all kindergarten through 12th grade public and private schools in Washington will be closed for at least six weeks.
But a growing group of Washington residents had taken to social media to call on local leaders to implement some type of shelter-in-place policy in order to better address the spread of the virus.
The decision follows similar announcements made by officials in at least a dozen other states, including New York and California. Washington has the 2nd highest number of cases in the US, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Fact-checking Trump’s claim about suicide deaths from a bad economy
In a marked low point of Donald Trump’s Monday press conference, the president argued that public health measures to slow spread of the coronavirus might have their own death toll, because the public health guidelines hurt the economy, and economic crisis leads to suicide.
The president implied that quickly ending ending restrictive health measures, in order to open the economy back up again, might avert an outbreak of suicide in the United States.
The president said: “People get tremendous anxiety and depression. And you have suicides over things like this when you have terrible economies. You have death, probably, I mean definitely would be in greater numbers than the numbers that we’re talking about with regard to the virus.”
What does the data show?
It is reasonable to suggest that a pandemic-linked recession can increase the risk of a rise in suicides.
According to research published in the British Journal of Psychiatry, North America and Europe experienced 10,000 more suicides during the 2008 recession. The outbreak of Sars in Hong Kong in 2002 and 2003 also led to a “significant increase” in suicides in those aged over 65, according to 2010 research.
But experts also caution that there is no single cause of suicide.
While the figures for the mortality rate of coronavirus continues to evolve, recent research from Wuhan, China, the city where the outbreak began, indicates the mortality rate there was around 1.4%. Experts at Harvard University have projected an infection rate in the US of between 20 – 60%, meaning that while it is impossible to reliably estimate the American coronavirus death toll a reasonable scenario could result in hundreds of thousands of lives lost.
On first look, given the potentially devastating death toll directly associated with coronavirus, it appears unlikely to be matched by an increased rate in suicide, making the presidents claim almost certainly inaccurate.
- In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In the UK, the Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 and Papyrus can be contacted on 0800 068 4141. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found atwww.befrienders.org
