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Are COVID-19 business restrictions causing U.S. suicides to soar?
Tim Murtaugh, the communications director for President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign, made that claim during a May 26 interview on Newsradio WRVA in Richmond, Virginia.
Murtaugh has deep Richmond connections, having worked in the city as a television reporter and as a spokesman for the Republican Party of Virginia, former Attorney General Jerry Kilgore and several statewide GOP campaigns. Lately, he’s been a regular guest on conservative Virginia radio shows, giving updates on Trump’s campaign.
On May 26, Murtaugh defended Trump’s demands to reopen the economy, saying the shutdown is causing its own death toll.
“You cannot shut the economy down and have it be dormant for an extended period of time,” he said. “That comes with significant health risks of its own; known health problems that we will get, never mind that we see suicide rates skyrocketing now because people are in despair, and some of that is economic pressure on people. We know that to be the case. So we have to get our economy moving again.”
Fact-checking Murtaugh’s claim, we found that mental health experts are deeply concerned that the sharp economic downturn could lead to more suicides — particularly if there is a long period of high unemployment. But there is no broad evidence that U.S. suicides have increased this year, let alone skyrocketed, as Murtaugh says.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention keeps national suicide statistics, a lengthy process that requires verification of reported self-inflicted deaths. The latest data is from 2018 — more than a year before the first COVID-19 death occurred in the U.S. Suicide statistics for this year will be ready in 2022.
Click here to read the full fact-check.
Facebook post showing ‘body bags’ claims that coronavirus is a hoax
A photo of a woman holding what looks like a body bag with one hand is actually from a symbolic funeral procession to protest the reopening of businesses in Miami. The body bags are fake. Read the fact-check»
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As the coronavirus collides with protests across the U.S., misinformation is running rampant. Lester Holt, John Green and other MediaWise ambassadors outline tips to help you avoid spreading misinformation even further. Watch the video»
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Alex Mahadevan is a senior multimedia reporter at MediaWise. He can be reached at amahadevan@poynter.org or on Twitter at @AlexMahadevan. Follow MediaWise on TikTok.
