So I saw this. There’s a key error in it, but I’ll get to that in a moment.

This contains a serious error that does not pass the sniff test. After all, the suicide rate in the US, per, 100,000 has generally ranged between 10 and 24 per 100,000. Looking at various online articles it appears that the correct relationship between suicide and unemployment is about 2 or so per 100,000. Now, I suspect that Mr. Hagopian misread whatever source he had for the suicide rate link and probably dropped a decimal point.

Still, 2 or 2.1 per 100,000 adds up in a nation of nearly 330 million.

The economic effects of the various quarantine/social distancing/shelter in place orders around the country has already increased unemployment about 2%. If we run through the numbers, that’s about 1400 people who will die as a consequence from that one cause–suicide. If things get as bad economically as predicted the cost in lives will be 190,000.

That’s just one of the ways that a faltering economy kills people. That’s just a small part of the total damage that the efforts, however well-intentioned they might be (something I, frankly, am unwilling to just accept as the case), will have. There are other ways that a faltering/crashed economy kills people. And many more will have their lives blighted in various ways, creating suffering and misery that need not be there.

And that’s the price we’re paying to “curb” something that was shaping up to be a somewhat worse than average (although far from the worst we’d had recently) cold/flu season.

The cure is worse than the disease.