There have been fewer suicides in Saskatchewan during the novel coronavirus pandemic than during the same time period in 2019.
Data from the Saskatchewan government shows 37 suicides between March 1 and May 4 in 2019 and 26 people killed themselves during that time in 2020.
A mental health expert from the provincial branch of the Canadian Mental Health Association said the decrease could be caused by the pandemic distracting people from their preexisting thoughts or ideations. “Many people cope with the immediate problem that there is… having no job or applying for CERB or all these kind of things.
It gets a lot of people to focus on what they’re doing and it kind of keeps things from building up inside,” Dave Nelson, a senior program