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PHOTO: Pixabay
The Japanese government statistics office shows that the number of people who died by suicide in the country in October was higher than the number of COVID-19 deaths there for the entire year. 2,153 people took their own lives in Japan last month, citing the national police, CNN reports.
As of Friday, the death toll from COVID-19 was 2,087, the Health Minister announced.
Japan is one of the few developed economies that discloses current data on suicides in the country. The latest for the US, for example, are from 2018.
“We were not even locked up and the impact of the coronavirus pandemic was minimal compared to other countries, but we are still seeing a huge increase in suicides,” said Michiko Ueda of Waseda University. “This would mean that in some countries a similar or greater jump can be expected in the future.”
Japan has long struggled with one of the highest suicide rates in the world, according to the World Health Organization. The pandemic appears to have led almost 83% more women to kill themselves, compared to the number of cases since October last year. Almost 22% more men commit suicide during the same period.
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