Young Americans are dying at the highest rate in 15 years and the driving cause is the death of the human spirit caused by COVID-19 lockdowns, according to new research.

Steven Woolf, director emeritus of the Center on Society and Health at Virginia Commonwealth University, published a report on JAMA in March that showed the overall mortality rate for people 1 to 19 in the U.S. jumped 10.7 percent between 2019 and 2020, and another 8.3 percent in 2021. 

His research noted that COVID-19 accounted for only one-tenth of the rise in mortality among young people in 2020, and one-fifth of it in 2021. Researchers largely blamed homicides, drug overdoses, car accidents, and suicides as the main cause for the jump, The Wall Street Journal reported last week. 

The report noted that young people had been generally thriving in the U.S. with the invention of antibiotics after WWII and new vaccines. 

Non-healthcare factors like car seats and safer cars also played a role in the decline of mortality among the young. 

Woolf said these advancements are now being “offset” by the causes of death listed above.

“We see a lot more depression and anxiety [patients] coming in that wonder, ‘What’s happening in the world, and how is this going to affect me?’” Kimberly Mages, the Central Clinic Behavioral Health’s chief clinical officer, told Cincinnati’s Local 12.

The WSJ spoke to the mother of an 11-year-old who was once thriving and spent his days playing sports and socializing with friends. But his mother told the paper that COVID lockdowns changed him and he became “depressed,” which was something he’s never experienced up until that point.

She tried to get him help, but he began using drugs. Three years later, after the lockdowns, she discovered his lifeless body ravaged by fentanyl. 

TRENDPOST: The Trends Journal has warned that it is the perfect storm for mental illness among children. An entire generation of children have been locked down, terrified about death, and told they could end up killing their grandmother. That’s not even including the new pressures that we have documented that come with social media. (See “IT’S OFFICIAL: SOCIAL MEDIA IS NOW WORTHLESS” 4 Apr 2023, “HOOKED ON ‘LIKES’? SOCIAL MEDIA COULD CHANGE TEEN BRAIN FUNCTIONS: STUDY” 17 Jan 2023, “SOCIAL MEDIA = DRUG ADDICTION” 16 Aug 2022, and “E.U. BANS RUSSIAN MEDIA OUTLETS TO SILENCE VOICES NOT SINGING THEIR TUNE” 1 Mar 2022.) 

Repeating what we had forecast back in 2020, the WSJ’s report noted that physicians and other researchers say school closures and in-person socializing have “worsened the burgeoning mental health epidemic among young people in the U.S.” Children who do not have in-person contact often turn to social media for comfort, which can lead them to sites that only perpetuate their problems. (See “COVID-19 FALLOUT: SUICIDE RATES IN U.S. JUMP FOR FIRST TIME IN YEARS AMID LOCKDOWNS,”18 Apr 2023.)

We have long noted that politicians and mainstream media are to be blamed for instating and enforcing lockdowns for a virus that was only dangerous to a very small segment of the population. 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said just over 1,800 children from 0-18 died in the country from the virus since the outbreak began. In 2019, there were 73 million Americans in that age range, which means there was a 99.997 survival rate for that age group as of 20 May.