'We have failed our children': Goldie Hawn warns COVID-19 pandemic has unleashed mental trauma on an entire generation of kids



Goldie Hawn warned that the national trauma inflicted on children by the COVID-19 pandemic is approaching and "could very well surpass" the dread brought on by the 9/11 terror attacks and the Cold War.

In an op-ed for USA Today, Hawn described how she saw her "entire world get ripped apart" by the threat of all-out nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union in 1956 when she was in the fifth grade.

After being shown a graphic and grim educational film about the dangers of nuclear war, the then-11-year-old Goldie Hawn ran home during lunch to call her mother at work and told her, "Mommy, come home quick! We’re all going to die!"

Hawn said the threat of nuclear holocaust inflicted trauma on her for years.

"Even in high school, I’d hear a siren in the morning and be too terrified to go to school that day," Hawn wrote. "This was a specific trauma that affected me, but it was a collective trauma, too – an entire generation of American children was, in some form or another, taught to think of nuclear holocaust as a real threat."

Hawn compared the collective trauma endured by her generation to the upheaval other generations experienced – such as children who watched the Challenger space shuttle disaster happen live on Jan. 28, 1986, the kids who witnessed the Twin Towers collapse from the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the youngsters who have had their lives turned upside down by the COVID-19 pandemic.

"We all know how magical a child’s imagination can be – the wonderful worlds they create in their minds. But there’s a flip side to the joyful creativity that can turn a big cardboard box into a spaceship," the "Overboard" actress articulated. "A child’s mind exposed to real-world fear, without the ability to properly process it, can go down dark passages leading to nothing less than existential dread."

Hawn explained that the COVID-19 pandemic has robbed adults and children of critical "support structures that all humans depend on for perspective, encouragement, and love."

"The COVID era has changed our children’s lives in far more real, tangible ways — social distancing, school closures, daily mask use," she added. "Kids are afraid of people, spaces, even the air around them – a level of constant fear not seen in decades."

Hawn cited a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that found emergency room visits for suspected suicide attempts by adolescent girls spiked nearly 51% in 2021 and almost 4% for boys.

The movie star noted that U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy cautioned in December that the COVID-19 pandemic has had "unprecedented impacts on the mental health of America’s youth and families."

She also linked to a declaration of national emergency in child and adolescent mental health by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and the Children’s Hospital Association.

"As health professionals dedicated to the care of children and adolescents, we have witnessed soaring rates of mental health challenges among children, adolescents, and their families over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, exacerbating the situation that existed prior to the pandemic," the declaration stated in October. "Children and families across our country have experienced enormous adversity and disruption."

Hawn commented on the alarming concerns about the mental health of America's youth, "This tells us that as a nation, we have failed our children."

"We are not properly funding preventive care and early interventions that normalize the mental struggles every individual has at some level," the Academy Award-winning actress wrote. "There are everyday tools for mental fitness, just as there are for exercise and healthy eating; we just don’t teach them in any systematic way to our nation’s children."

Hawn called for "helping children understand the chemical reactions that occur in their mind" when they hear the "latest horrifying statistic or headline on the evening news." She said that understanding how the brain works will provide children with "the patience and confidence to put things in perspective, rather than fall victim to the emotions of the moment and end up in a helplessness that leads to depression and sometimes self-harm, the kind we are seeing in record numbers among children."

She warned that the answer is not to allow kids to "be over-diagnosed or shuffled through a system that screens and treats extreme cases after they are too late."

"We will survive the COVID-19 pandemic, but I’m not sure we can survive an entire generation whose collective trauma sends them hobbling into adulthood. We need more research, more preventative care and more early intervention. And there’s still time," Hawn concluded. "If we get it right, today’s kids could emerge as the strongest generation America has ever produced."

Hawn also made headlines this week when she appeared on "The Megyn Kelly Show" and proclaimed that Hollywood celebrities need to entertain the public no matter what political affiliations they have.

"I stay in my lane," Hawn declared when it comes to spouting political opinions.

Suicide attempts by teen girls spiked during COVID-19 pandemic: CDC



Suicide attempts by teen girls spiked during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to new data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Among the adolescent girls aged 12-17 years, the average weekly visits to the emergency department for suspected suicide attempts from February 2021 to March 2021 was 50.6% higher than the same period the year before, according to the CDC analysis. Boys were far less likely to show suicidal tendencies during the same time period; the number of emergency department visits for suicide attempts rose by 3.7% for males.

"In May 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, ED visits for suspected suicide attempts began to increase among adolescents aged 12–17 years, especially girls," the CDC study found.

From late July to late August 2020, the average weekly number of emergency department visits for suspected suicide attempts among 12- to 17-year-old girls increased by 26.2% from the same time period the prior year.

"The study likely underrepresents the real number of suspected suicide attempts because Americans were hesitant to go to hospitals during the pandemic, in fear of contracting COVID-19," according to CNBC. "In spring 2020, there was a 16.8% drop in emergency department visits among men and women aged 18 to 24 compared with the same time period a year prior."

The study theorized that the stresses of the COVID-19 pandemic may have been toxic to the mental health of young people.

"Young persons might represent a group at high risk because they might have been particularly affected by mitigation measures, such as physical distancing (including a lack of connectedness to schools, teachers, and peers); barriers to mental health treatment; increases in substance use; and anxiety about family health and economic problems, which are all risk factors for suicide," the CDC study said.

The CDC suggested that parents spending more time with children at home because of lockdowns may have tipped off adults to suicidal thoughts and behaviors of their children.

"The findings from this study suggest more severe distress among young females than has been identified in previous reports during the pandemic, reinforcing the need for increased attention to, and prevention for, this population," the CDC said of the significant difference of suicide attempts by boys and girls.

States began implementing stay-at-home orders in March 2020, and by the end of March, 32 out of 50 states had locked down.

The CDC noted that the increase in suicide attempts did not equate to more deaths. The suicide rate among young persons aged 1524 from the third quarter of 2019 and the third quarter of 2020 "saw no significant change."

Earlier studies also found an alarming increase in suicide attempts and suicidal thoughts during the COVID-19 pandemic. A poll conducted in June 2020 by the CDC found that 25.5% of Americans ages 18 and 24 reported "having seriously considered suicide in the 30 days before completing the survey."

In January 2021, a rash of suicides forced Las Vegas schools to reopen partially.

In Japan, suicides were up nearly 40% in October 2020 compared to the same period in 2019. Suicides by Japanese women spiked by 82.6% in October, compared to a 21.3% increase in suicides by men.

Drug overdose deaths in the United States surged during the coronavirus pandemic, reaching the highest totals since the opioid epidemic began, according to the CDC.

Japan had more suicides in October than all of the COVID-19 deaths during the pandemic



Japan recently released somber statistics regarding the number of suicides in the country, which found more suicides in one month than the total coronavirus deaths during the entire COVID-19 pandemic.

In Japan, suicides in October surged to 2,153, according to a report from the National Police Agency. This is a 39.9% increase compared to the same period in 2019. Suicides by Japanese women spiked by 82.6% in October, compared to a 21.3% increase in suicides by men, as reported by Nippon.

October marked the fourth straight month of increased suicides in the country. Thus far in 2020, there have been 17,219 suicides in Japan between January and October. In 2019, Japan had 19,959 suicides, the first time it was lower than the 20,000 since officials began tracking and recording suicide data in 1978.

The 2,153 suicides in October is more than the 2,051 total coronavirus deaths in Japan since the country started keeping track in mid-February.

Experts believe the isolation brought on by coronavirus lockdowns, other pandemic-related restrictions, and economic uncertainty has exacerbated mental health issues this year.

"We didn't even have a lockdown, and the impact of Covid is very minimal compared to other countries ... but still we see this big increase in the number of suicides," Michiko Ueda, an associate professor at Waseda University in Tokyo and an expert on suicides told CNN. "That suggests other countries might see a similar or even bigger increase in the number of suicides in the future."

"We need to seriously confront reality," chief government spokesman Katsunobu Kato said last week while announcing new initiatives to help people through suicide hotlines and social media outreach.

Japanese authorities increased suicide prevention funding by an additional $10 million, raising the total budget to $24 million.

In the United States, experts found that tens of thousands of people in nursing homes "have died from neglect and sorrow related to the pandemic," according to a report from the Associated Press.

"Interviews with dozens of people across the country reveal swelling numbers of less clear-cut deaths that doctors believe have been fueled not by neglect but by a mental state plunged into despair by prolonged isolation listed on some death certificates as 'failure to thrive,'" the report stated.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that more than one quarter of young adults in the U.S. considered suicide in June. CDC Director Robert Redfield said in July, "There has been another cost that we've seen, particularly in high schools. We're seeing, sadly, far greater suicides now than we are deaths from COVID."