Shocking statistics have revealed that more people have died of suicide in Japan in the month of October alone than from CoVid-19 during the entire pandemic. The statistics show that in October, 2,153 Japanese people took their own lives while 2,087 people have died of Covid-19 up until the present day.
Many analysts across the world have long stated the dangers that the ongoing pandemic, lockdown, and the economic fallout, pose for the mental-health of citizens. Japan has had a longstanding issue with suicide and rates of people taking their own lives were already among the highest in the world, double the global average. That said, the number of female suicides rose by 83% in October 2020 compared to the same month last year, while the number of male suicides rose by 22%.
This clearly shows the negative effect the pandemic has had on the mental-wellbeing of many in Japanese society and has resulted in a reversal of a trend that showed suicide rates gradually reducing over the last 10 years.
A number of reasons are given for the high-suicide rate in Japan generally, many of which have been exacerbated over the last 9 months, including over-work, a culture that emphasises stoicism, and high-levels of social alienation.
The number of women now taking their own lives has been of the most concern, given that the increase in female suicides is 4 times that of men. Sociologists and researchers have suggested that the fact that women make up more of the part-time workforce and occupy more jobs in hospitality and retail sectors which have been affected more-so by the pandemic, may account for the more dramatic increase in suicide.
Michiko Ueda, who is an Associate Professor at Waseda University in Tokyo, and an expert on suicides, said of the situation:
"We haven't even experienced the full economic consequences of the pandemic. The pandemic itself can get worse, then maybe there's a semi-lockdown again; if that happens, then the impact can be huge. We didn't even have a lockdown, and the impact of Covid is very minimal compared to other countries ... but still we see this big increase in the number of suicides. That suggests other countries might see a similar or even bigger increase in the number of suicides in the future."
While some have said that the lockdown is to blame for an increase in social alienation, Japan itself has seen very low levels of restrictions compared to most other developed countries such as those in Europe and North America. It should also be remembered that the death rate in Japan from Covid-19 is extremely low by international standards.
In the United States in 2018, less than 50,000 people committed suicide, whereas over quarter-of-a-million people have died of CoVid-19 in 2020. Similarly, in the United Kingdom, around 6,000 people kill themselves each year, whereas as many as 70,000 have now died of CoVid-19.
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