It took me until taking a non-required college course for my econ degree to learn that there is a large increase in suicide/drug/alcohol-related deaths called "deaths of despair" that started in the 90's and has gotten worse. It specifically hits middle-aged white men, especially those who are uneducated and live in rural areas (read: conservatives). From wikipedia: "It gained media attention because of its connection to the opioid epidemic." (i.e. they only started paying attention when it started to hit minorities so that they could cry racism). It almost seems intentional that policy makers have enforced inefficient COVID tactics that enforce social isolation and a breakdown of tradition (hint: these help induce mental breaks). It's like we're living in a communist psyop. Edit: About 300,000 deaths have been said to have been caused by COVID, although it's been noted that these statistics are almost certainly overestimates given they're based on reports from hospitals who are financially incentivized to call every death in their hospital a COVID death. Deaths of despair this year are expected to increase by about 100,000, and given that these are mostly middle-aged victims, I'm certain more years of life are lost from just the INCREASE of suicides this year than from COVID.

It took me until taking a non-required college course for my econ degree to learn that there is a large increase in suicide/drug/alcohol-related deaths called "deaths of despair" that started in the 90's and has gotten worse. It specifically hits middle-aged white men, especially those who are uneducated and live in rural areas (read: conservatives). From wikipedia: "It gained media attention because of its connection to the opioid epidemic." (i.e. they only started paying attention when it started to hit minorities so that they could cry racism). It almost seems intentional that policy makers have enforced inefficient COVID tactics that enforce social isolation and a breakdown of tradition (hint: these help induce mental breaks). It's like we're living in a communist psyop.