People were depressed.
People were bored.
And as the article pointed out, many treatment programs were either shut down temporarily or impacted negatively by being virtual.
There were folks that saw delays in diagnostics for cancer! Some folks were impacted in getting dialysis...
It is truly questionable (albeit at this point folks won’t believe that yet - they are still a bit hyped up) if all these government shutdowns and social distancing did more harm than good?
And they had plenty of free government money. In California, people were receiving $520/wk in State unemployment and another $600/wk Federal COVID benefit. For many that was double what they made when they had a job. Can’t go anywhere or do anything besides sit on the couch or on the computer. Time to break out the alcohol and drugs.
Excess deaths.