I don’t suppose the Covid/anti mask/anti vaccine deniers will be influenced by the global death toll from coronavirus reaching three million on Saturday. Yes, three million, as reported by the Johns Hopkins University in the United States.
It was ‘only’ two million in January 2021. And it is thought the number could be higher on account of the concealment of the true numbers by some governments.
The conspiracy theorists probably won’t be influenced by the report of the coroner in County Kildare, Professor Denis Cusack, who has reported that a preliminary investigation of suspected deaths by suicide in the county has not increased significantly.
This is consistent with a report from Professor Appleby, professor of psychiatry from Manchester and government adviser and researcher who has published a report on the British Medical Journal. This report’s main finding is that ‘suicide rates haven’t risen, but we should be cautious’.
The deniers have made various claims from the onset of the pandemic including that the virus wasn’t real, if it was it was harmless or no more harmful than the flu, that suicide rates had increased significantly as a consequence of lockdowns, and so on.
There is no evidence to support these wild, misinformed, sweeping assertions.
There is, however, a great deal of evidence about the disastrous consequences of the Covid 19 pandemic including the debilitating illness for some, the effects of ‘long covid’ for others, and death for others.
Three million dead in April 2021.
However, we might recover from the financial, economic, emotional, psychiatric, social consequences of this pandemic, we won’t be helped by denying the evidence and concocting facts and claims out of thin air.
We will recover by following soundly based public health guidance, based on science, data and evidence, and the rollout of the various vaccines through our population.