Suicide-related excess mortality in Japan blamed on Covid restrictions – study

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – A recent UK study already showed that there were 5 times as many children who died from suicide since the start of the pandemic as the number who died from COVID-19 (almost no children, and no healthy children, have died from Covid in the US and UK).

And the fact that suicides have increased in Japan over the past year has already been documented.

According to this new study, which was conducted through scientists at a Japanese university in conjunction with the Japan Infectious Disease Surveillance Center, 2,665 cases of excess mortality were identified between July 2020 and March 2021.

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“Excess mortality” was defined as the difference between the actual number of deaths and the expected epidemiological threshold (assuming the actual number exceeds expectations).

The study used all-cause data, as reported, from 2005 through February 2021. Deaths reported throughout Japan were incorporated.

Using their model, the researchers determined that a “significant excess of suicide-attributable mortality was observed between July 2020 and March 2021, with the largest excess observed in October last year, which we noted at that time.”

During that period, the number of Covid deaths was 8,153, meaning that the excess suicide deaths attributable to confinements and other pandemic-related circumstances were nearly equivalent to one-third of the total Covid deaths.

The study authors concluded that governments should examine cost-effectiveness analysis. The impact on quality of life should be considered among the various drawbacks of lockdowns and other economic and social activity restrictions as an important part of countermeasures.

“Careful and continuous monitoring of excess mortality attributable to suicide is expected to be necessary,” the study authors said.