IN MAY 2020 the Australian Medical Association (ama) issued a warning on mental health. Amid the SARS outbreak of 2003, the suicide rate rose among elderly women in Hong Kong. Studies suggest suicide is also more common during recessions. Based on these precedents, the ama projected that covid-19 could cause a 25% increase in suicides. In some scenarios the ama considered, extra deaths from self-harm could exceed those caused by covid-19 itself. Fortunately, this does not seem to have come to pass. Data from the Australian states of New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria show that there were 2% fewer suicides between April and September of 2020 than in the same period of 2019. Australia has had a mild pandemic relative to other Western countries. However, even places that covid-19 has ravaged show a similar pattern. A recent study of 21 countries in the Lancet measured how suicide rates changed between the first and second quarters of 2020, after adjusting for sea-sonality and for the long-run trend in each country before the pandemic began. In the median jurisdiction with available numbers-many data sources were sub-national, such as provinces-there were 10% less suicides between April and June 2020 than expected, and 7% less than in the same months of 2019. Weighted by population, the average declines were 7% relative to expectations and 11% compared with 2019.
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