To the extent that we know what works, suicide prevention efforts face legislative and funding limitations. Singer pointed to research on “comprehensive community-based suicide prevention,” including support for community “gatekeepers,” which was shown to reduce teen suicide rates, in particular in rural communities. But rates crept back up when the program was defunded. The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) has called for expanded suicide assessment and intervention training for medical professionals, which was required by just nine states as of 2018.

But the bigger problem is that there is a great deal that we do not know about preventing suicide. Andrews said that there is a lack of consensus around what works best, or even what works at all.

“One of the reasons that we don’t understand it really well is that understanding, the research, the amount of time and effort we put into understanding changes in the suicide rate, is abysmal,” he said.

Dr. Jill Harkavy-Friedman, vice president of research for the AFSP, made a similar call for more funding, both for suicide research and suicide prevention.

“Until we scale up intervention efforts at the community, state, and national levels, we will likely continue to see an increase in suicides in the United States,” she said. “As a nation, we need to significantly increase our investment in the science, education, and advocacy, in order to expand effective suicide prevention efforts. The lives of millions of Americans depend on it.”

Read it all.

For months, I’ve been noting the ways the suicide crisis is so strange. This morning, read my new piece on it:https://t.co/dGxSdabGYW

— Charles Fain Lehman (@CharlesFLehman) February 15, 2020

In a popular Catholic church in the Philippines, nearly half of the pews were empty for Sunday Mass. The few hundred worshippers who showed up were asked to refrain from shaking others’ hands or holding them during prayers to prevent the spread of the virus that started in China.

In Hong Kong, Cardinal John Hon Tong, wearing a mask, announced the suspension of public Masses for two weeks and urged churchgoers to instead watch them online.

Buddhist temples, Christian churches and Muslim mosques have been ordered closed since Jan. 29 in mainland China, where the new coronavirus strain was first detected in the central city of Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak. Mosques have canceled weekly Friday prayers since January under an order to avoid “collective religious activities.”

Religious leaders should encourage Muslims to “trust the party” and avoid crowds, the Communist Party-controlled body that oversees China’s officially authorized mosques said in a statement.

The restrictions and dwindling crowds in religiously diverse places of worship underscore the extent of the scare over the outbreak that has permeated many aspects of life in the hard-hit Asian region.

Read it all.

Faith in an outbreak’s shadow: Houses of worship in mainland China are closed. Protective cloth is over the grills in confessional boxes in the Philippines. Crowds have thinned at popular Japanese and Thai temples. https://t.co/hXPJ2u9TMY

— The Associated Press (@AP) February 15, 2020

O God, fountain of love, pour thy love into our souls, that we may love those whom thou lovest with the love thou givest us, and think and speak of them tenderly, meekly, lovingly; and so loving our brethren and sisters for thy sake, may grow in thy love, and dwelling in love may dwell in thee; for Jesus Christ’s sake.

Blessed be God,
because he has not rejected my prayer
or removed his steadfast love from me!

–Psalm 66:20