[New post] Teenager girl Suicide rate during Covid pandemic and Florida and lockdown effect
A Lin posted: " . It's true that the CDC reported a 50.6% increase in suspected suicide attempts among teen girls from February 2021 to March of 2021 . But Weiss conveniently omitted that this increase corresponded to a time when most schools had re-opened. In fact, "
. It's true that the CDC reported a 50.6% increase in suspected suicide attempts among teen girls from February 2021 to March of 2021
. But Weiss conveniently omitted that this increase corresponded to a time when most schools had re-opened. In fact, as we've shown in Inside Medicine, suspected suicide attempts in teen girls dropped dramatically during the initial stay-at-home period in early and mid-2020 when schools were closed, returned to normal levels when some schools re-opened in the fall, and reached new highs when a majority schools had finally opened. This comports with decades of data showing that teen suicides increase when school is in session, a troubling pattern.
Weiss ended the rant saying that "people are killing themselves." This, frankly, is bullshit. Sadly, people are dying from suicide, just as they always do; but as my colleagues and I reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association, US suicide deaths were lower than usual in 2020, and the most recent available data for 2021 suggest no increase, including among children. In sum, Weiss's attempt to weaponize suicide as evidence of a moral catastrophe around school closures was both misguided and inaccurate on the merits.
First off, the correct figure is 1,150 dead children. Let's get it right because the real number is 143% of the one Weiss offered. Second, Weiss implied this to be no big deal. Is pediatric Covid-19 merely the flu (a frequent talking point)? No. According to CDC figures, over the last 20 years (excluding 2021, when we virtually eliminated flu while wearing, as you'll recall, cloth masks, which Weiss had already bemoaned earlier in the segment), an average of 97 children per year died of influenza. In the first 22 months of the pandemic, Covid-19 killed around 6.5 times as many children as flu would be expected to kill in a similar period, and that's with the mitigation Weiss wants us to abandon.
In fact, after the first wave, Florida and other states that did little to stop Covid-19 fared much worse than New York, New Jersey and other places that maintained mitigation strategies for longer.
What's more, a highly conspicuous pattern emerged. Through the lens of excess mortality, since July 1, 2020, the 20 states with the most excess mortality per 100,000 people are (starting with the most): Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Nevada, Missouri, Florida, Montana, Texas, Kentucky, Georgia, West Virginia, South Carolina, Ohio, and South Dakota.
In contrast, the 10 states with the least excess mortality since July 1, 2021: Washington, Minnesota, New Jersey, Maine, New York, Hawaii, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Vermont. (If you only look at Covid-19 deaths, rather than excess deaths as I've done here, a similar pattern persists, again, provided you look at any period after the initial wave).
Notice anything about the political divide here? Could it be that mitigation made a difference? Of course it did
In fact, after the first wave, Florida and other states that did little to stop Covid-19 fared much worse than New York, New Jersey and other places that maintained mitigation strategies for longer.
What's more, a highly conspicuous pattern emerged. Through the lens of excess mortality, since July 1, 2020, the 20 states with the most excess mortality per 100,000 people are (starting with the most): Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Nevada, Missouri, Florida, Montana, Texas, Kentucky, Georgia, West Virginia, South Carolina, Ohio, and South Dakota.
In contrast, the 10 states with the least excess mortality since July 1, 2021: Washington, Minnesota, New Jersey, Maine, New York, Hawaii, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Vermont. (If you only look at Covid-19 deaths, rather than excess deaths as I've done here, a similar pattern persists, again, provided you look at any period after the initial wave).
Notice anything about the political divide here? Could it be that mitigation made a difference? Of course it did
During the Delta wave alone, per capita, Florida endured 460% of the excess deaths recorded in New York and 430% recorded in New Jersey. Florida was the 3rd worst state in excess mortality during the Delta wave, surpassed only by Tennessee and Montana. Meanwhile, New York and New Jersey were 2nd and 4th best, respectively. Massachusetts and Connecticut were 1st and 3rd best.
The effect sizes were notable, too, not simply epidemiologic curiosities. From January 2021 through June 2021, the 10 worst states recorded 9-times the excess mortality as the 10 best. If the entire nation performed as well as the best 10 states, the US would have recorded approximately 425,000 fewer excess deaths since July 2020 than it actually has.
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