Excess Mortality by Suicide Caused by COVID-19 in Japan
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Abstract
Background: Countermeasures against COVID-19 outbreak, such as lockdowns and voluntary restrictions against going out, adversely affect human stress and depress economic activity. Particularly, this stress might lead to suicide. Object: We examined excess mortality attributable to COVID-19 related suicide. Method: We applied the National Institute of Infectious Diseases (NIID) model to suicide deaths, by gender, throughout Japan during October 2009–January 2021. Effects of the great earthquake that struck eastern Japan on March 11, 2011 were incorporated into the estimation model. Results: Significant excess mortality from suicide was found during July–January for both genders. Its frequency was higher among females than among males. In total, 2276 cases of excess mortality were identified. Discussion and Conclusion: Excess mortality during the four months was more than twice that of COVID-19 deaths confirmed by PCR testing. Countermeasures against COVID-19 should be chosen carefully in light of suicide effects.
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SciScore for 10.1101/2021.02.13.21251670: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
NIH rigor criteria are not applicable to paper type.Table 2: Resources
No key resources detected.
Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).
Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:The present study has some limitations. First, our results reflect data obtained through September, 2020 when the COVID-19 outbreak was not so widespread. Subsequently, and especially in winter, a severer COVID-19 outbreak occurred. The second state of emergency was declared on January 7, 2021. It required shortened business hours for …
SciScore for 10.1101/2021.02.13.21251670: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
NIH rigor criteria are not applicable to paper type.Table 2: Resources
No key resources detected.
Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).
Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:The present study has some limitations. First, our results reflect data obtained through September, 2020 when the COVID-19 outbreak was not so widespread. Subsequently, and especially in winter, a severer COVID-19 outbreak occurred. The second state of emergency was declared on January 7, 2021. It required shortened business hours for restaurants. In the first state of emergency declaration in April and May, 2020, restaurants were required to shut down. Even though requirements of the second state of emergency were milder than the first, it might have increased suicide deaths several months after. Continuous monitoring is expected to be necessary. Second, to ascertain the most appropriate countermeasures for COVID-19 in Japan, cost-effectiveness analysis is necessary. At that time, loss of quality of life in should be counted among the costs of restriction of economic activity as a major part of countermeasures. It remains as a subject for our next research challenge.
Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.
Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.
Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.
Results from rtransparent:- Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
- Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
- No protocol registration statement was detected.
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