Connection uncovered between COVID-19 and increase in child suicides!

                                     “UPTICK IN CHIDREN TAKING THEIR LIVES” 

I was looking at some of the articles in the New York Times newspaper when a headline caught my attention. It said, “Surge of Student suicides pushes Las Vegas Schools to reopen.” Rising mental health emergencies and suicide rates point to the toll the pandemic lockdown is taking.”

The article, published January 24, 2021, is written by Erica L. Green, a correspondent in Washington. Erica covers the US Department of Education and Secretary Betsy DeVos focusing on higher education policy, educational equity, and civil rights enforcement in the nation’s K12 schools.

“The reminders of panic driven suffering among students in Clark county Nev., have come in droves,” it begins.

An early warning system that monitors students mental health has sent more than 3,100 alerts to district officials, raising alarms about suicidal thoughts possible self-harm or cries for care. By December 18 students had taken their own lives.

The situation has pushed the Clark County district “towards bringing students back as quickly as possible.”  Greater Las Vegas continues to post huge numbers of coronavirus cases and deaths, but the school board has agreed to phase in the return of some elementary school grades and groups of struggling students.

“When we started to see the uptick in children taking their lives, we knew it was not just the COVID numbers we need to look at anymore. We have to find a way to put our hands on our kids, to see them, to look at them. They’ve got to start seeing some movement some hope,” the Clark County Superintendent Jesus Jara said.

Greta Massetti, who studies the effect of violence and trauma on children at the CDC said, “there is definite reason to be concerned.” Many children have relied on their school for mental health services that have now been restricted.

Over the nine months of closure in Clark County there were 18 suicides. There were nine in the entire previous year. One student left a note saying he had nothing to look forward to. Even a nine year old student committed suicide.

The article continues: Over the summer Dr. Robert Redfield who was then the CDC director warned that a rise in adolescent suicides would be one of the negative consequences of school closings.

Here is one example: Four days before his 13th birthday Hayden Hunstable, committed suicide, in Aledo Texas.  He admitted to his father that he missed his friends and football. He was also “consumed” with certain video games.

Another child, a 14 year old boy in Maryland, killed himself after he heard that school would not open. The father of yet another teenager who lived in Maine said that he “attributed his son’s suicide to isolation.” 

“We knew he was upset because he was no longer able to participate in his school activities, football. We never guessed it was this bad.”

Children in some districts like Clark County with more than 300,000 students will have been out of school for more than a year.

But it is not just children who have been negatively affected by the situation, Erica Green writes in the article.

“Recent graduates have also been affected” she said. For example, Anthony Orr, 18 years old, who had recently graduated with advanced honors drove to a parking lot and shot himself. When his father found him in the car he grabbed his arm and asked “Son, what have you done?” 

Anthony’s mother commented that “Our kids are feeling hopeless.”

In another case a 12 year old boy “searched his district-issued iPad for “how to make a noose.”

Many children are finding it difficult to function in the isolation. They feel disconnected.

The situation has weighed heavily on Dr, Jara. “I have no words to say to these families anymore. I believe in God, but I cannot help but wonder: Am I doing everything possible to open our schools?

“When we started to see the uptick in children taking their lives we knew it was not just the COVID numbers we need to look at anymore,” he added. “I feel responsible. They are all my kids.” 

The youngest student he has lost to suicide was 9 years old. 

In Clark County 18 suicides over 9 months is double the 9 they had the previous year. Between March 16 and June 30 six children died and 12 between July 1 and December 31 the district said. 

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