Suicides in the U.S. decreased in 2020, according to preliminary data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

Critics of lockdowns and other coronavirus-prevention efforts have suggested throughout the pandemic that those measures would drive the suicide rate higher. But that hasn’t happened. 

From 2019 to 2020, deaths by suicide declined by 5.6%, from 47,511 to 44,834, per the CDC. It was the third consecutive year of decline.  

Suicides went down in April and May of last year, a different trend than in years past, Farida Ahmad, health scientist at the National Center for Health Statistics, tells Axios.  

COVID-19 became the third leading cause of death in 2020, bumping suicide down from the tenth leading cause of death in 2019 to the eleventh. From Axios.