DuPage County, Illinois:
“Coroner Richard Jorgensen issued a warning Thursday that the number of suicides in the county between Jan. 1 and June 30 rose from 44 in 2019 to 54 in 2020, a 23% increase.
…This year overdose deaths are 52% higher than the same time last year, with the majority occurring after the COVID-19 measures were implemented in the state.”
Cook, Lake and DuPage Counties, Illinois:
“The fallout of what happened with the quarantine is going to be pretty bad … for people’s mental health and people’s livelihoods, and that is not a good recipe.”
Why the pandemic is leading to more opioid overdoses
Above are just two local headlines. One can extrapolate the local effects of the COVID-19 mitigation to a national scenario.
At the beginning of the lockdown the messaging coming down from our overlords was that hospitals and medical resources would be overwhelmed if we didn’t obey the stay-at-home orders. Yet, we who are locked down (those at risk and the healthy) were not told that we would be overwhelmed. That was not in their consideration. As indicated above, there has been an increase of depression, anxiety and substance abuse leading to overdoses and death. Who would have thought that imposing social isolation, mask muzzling, loss of employment, loss of one’s business, etc. would have had such a devastating effect on humans? Our nanny overlords did not.
If it bleeds it leads. I have no doubt that the 24/7 news coverage of cases and deaths related to COVID-19 (Tales from the Crypt) exacerbates mental health problems, especially for those with pre-existing mental health problems. That coverage and the constant PSAs telling us to wear masks and stay home has got almost everyone spooked.
The line for early voting yesterday morning was outside the door, down the sidewalk and down another sidewalk. Some sixty people, standing apart in the UV light of the hot sun, were wearing a mask. I did not. I did wear one inside the county building to cast my vote. I didn’t want create a scene.
(There is no medical science behind wearing a mask outdoors. Yet, medical-scientism demands, like its counterpart climate-scientism, mindless herd-submission to its specious dogma.)
Personally, I am infinitely more concerned about the effects of the lockdown on humans than about the effects of COVID-19. More and more COVID-19 cases are reported. So what? More and more people are being tested. People get it and build immunity to it. Deaths are reported but are the deaths only caused by COVID-19 or by pre-existing conditions and COVID-19? We are not told.
We all know that those with pre-existing conditions -respiratory illness, compromised immune systems, the elderly and, the obese, like Illinois’ governor J.B. Pritzker – should be quarantined. The rest of us should be set free. The lockdown should have ended two weeks after it was started.
Along with the excuse given for the lockdown: “to keep from overloading the hospital and the essential workers” (“workers”, a term used by Marxist sympathizers), was the “flatten the curve” excuse. 
The conditions for ending the lockdown were mutating. It mutated again with “we’ll wait for a vaccine”. We don’t need to wait for a vaccine to end the restrictions. The only vaccine I want is one which inoculates me against contracting bureaucrats into my life.
People need to get back to their livelihoods. Restrictions need to be lifted off of businesses and churches. No one should be deprived of a right to earn a living and to be fruitful. Kids need to be in school *(God protect them from the Progressive/Marxist/BLM indoctrination virus.) The paranoia imposed on us from the media and the overlords must stop. End the lockdown now! We are a free people who know how to protect ourselves and others. We’ve made it this far. Stop the spread of fear. Flatten the rhetoric.
It is not good for man to be alone. The COVID-19 mandates and our inability to cope with isolation creates a public mental health crisis. Mitigate this.
We need to protect the vulnerable – that is all of us – from the exasperating fear foisted on us by the “If it bleeds it leads” media and the tyranny of isolation imposed by the overlords who continue to de-humanize the population with their mandates.
*The Moral Case for Reopening Schools – Without Masks
Added 10-15-20:
“I am a left-leaning New York City public defender who voted for Bernie Sanders in the 2016 primaries and Hillary Clinton in the general election. I have never voted for a Republican candidate. I chose my career because I wanted to help those most defenseless in our society: indigent people accused and convicted of crimes and facing the awesome power of the state.
Until I saw the catastrophic effects that the lockdowns were having on the very people I sought to help…”
Lockdowners Speak with Privilege, and Contempt for the Poor and the Working Class.
In a radio interview discussing her article, Ms. Younes, a lifelong Democrat, said she is voting for Trump based on the COVID-19 restrictions the Biden/Harris ticket would impose if elected.
The Great Barrington Declaration
“As infectious disease epidemiologists and public health scientists we have grave concerns about the damaging physical and mental health impacts of the prevailing COVID-19 policies, and recommend an approach we call Focused Protection.”
Added 1-26-2021:
Surge of Student Suicides Pushes Las Vegas Schools to Reopen
Kingdom Venturers 