Among those who spoke, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar stated that the correct mindset to have isn’t “balancing health versus the economy,” but rather, “balancing health versus health.”
He noted that as a result of lockdown measures and the virus-induced recession, by some estimates, the United States could see an extra 65,000 deaths as a result of suicide, drug overdose, and alcohol abuse in the years ahead.
“Even more states are seeing a decline in the reporting of child maltreatment because kids aren’t at school,” he added, referring to increasing instances of domestic abuse as a result of the shutdown.
During the briefing, assistant Secretary for Mental Health and Substance Abuse Dr. Ellie McCance-Katz also shared a critical perspective about the negative effects that social isolation can have on mental health.
“Containing the effects of coronavirus are critically important but so too is preventing suicide,” she said. “As a psychiatrist, I would argue that a life loss to suicide is just as important as a life loss to coronavirus.”
Also vitally important, she says, is “keeping a person from being terrified to ever leave their home.”
“The research literature is clear on the effects of quarantine and stay at home practices on mental health,” Dr. McCance-Katz adds. “We know that the longer the duration of these orders, the greater the intensity of the mental health problems experienced. We also know that these symptoms persist for years to come.”
She said that her physician colleagues on the Coronavirus Task Force have carefully noted that “their perspective and advice centers on one aspect of the pandemic: virus containment.”
“However, even medically, it is not the sole perspective,” she adds.
“We can listen to your advice, but there are people on the other side saying there’s not going to be a surge and that we can safely open the economy, and the facts will bear this out,” he adds.
Among those who suffer most as a result of closing down the country are poor and underprivileged kids without a parent able to teach them at home, Rand says.
“I think we have to weigh the benefit of the kids being in school to learn,” she adds. “Not everybody has a great digital connection … not everybody has 5G and internet access. That digital divide has been very real for many students. We replace their meals.
“[…W]e’ve got to also get them back to that social and academic structure that is so important to so many of these schoolchildren.”
During the Governors Briefing on Tuesday, Secretary Azar also spelled out the risks of increasing cancer cases as a result of the shutdown due to patients not getting diagnosed.
“Mammograms are down 87 percent. Colonoscopies are down 90 percent,” he said. “Approximately 1.7 million new cancer cases are diagnosed per year in our country. And if we’re seeing an 80 percent drop in cancer cases identified, we could already have 300,000 or more undiagnosed cancer cases as a result of this crisis.”
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