Hohhot mother’s suicide sparks concern over the mental health cost of COVID lockdowns

This article contains mentions of suicide. If you or anyone you know is having thoughts of suicide or self-harm, there are people who want to help: In the U.S., the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline can be reached at 800-273-8255. In China, the Beijing Suicide Research and Prevention Center can be reached at 800-810-1117 or 010-8295-1332. Also, there is a list of suicide and emergency helplines around the world with links to more detailed hotlines.

Local pandemic control authorities in Inner Mongolia’s city of Hohhot have vowed to improve anti-epidemic measures after a middle-aged woman took her own life while cooped up at home, spurring concern over the psychological toll of unending lockdowns amid China’s “dynamic COVID-zero” strategy.

The 55-year-old woman and mother of two, surnamed Wang, was found dead by a lockdown-enforcement volunteer in her residential compound on Friday evening, according to media reports. The apartment building she lived in was closed off on October 26 after two COVID-19 cases were detected.

More details surrounding the circumstances of her death were revealed in an investigation report released on Sunday, where local officials said that before Wang’s fall, her 29-year-old daughter contacted community workers on duty, requesting help with her mother’s “mental breakdown” and desire to “die with her,” but the young woman’s pleas fell on deaf ears. Wang’s other daughter, who was not living with her, then called Hohhot’s local medical emergency hotline but was told that Wang’s situation was not “serious” enough to warrant an ambulance.

Wang, who had been on medication since 2019 for anxiety disorders, jumped to her death from her apartment building around 6 p.m., when the younger daughter went to a different room. Wang’s body was discovered minutes later. She was pronounced dead at the scene when healthcare workers arrived.

“We’ve been pulling out all the stops to protect people’s health and safety since the pandemic started. But unfortunately, this incident still occurred,” the officials tasked with investigating the case wrote, adding that Wang’s death has exposed “a few shortcomings” in the local government’s management of the lockdown.

“Our investigation showed that property management and community staff failed to respond in a timely and adequate manner. They lacked sensitivity to emergencies,” the statement read. “We will learn from this and comprehensively review the problems in our work.”

Hohhot, the capital of Inner Mongolia and one of China’s poorest regions, has been grappling with a COVID flare-up since late September. In order to contain the spread of the virus, many parts of the city have been under some form of lockdown, with fences frequently installed around housing compounds to restrict people’s movement. Meanwhile, many of Hohhot’s residents have taken to social media to complain about skyrocketing food prices and running low on necessities.

Wang’s resident community, which went under lockdown in late October and reported its most recent case last Wednesday, has been categorized as a “high-risk” area for more than a week. According to the official statement, the front door to Wang’s apartment building was never locked from the outside or blocked with metal barricades — a common measure to enforce restrictions during Shanghai’s months-long lockdown earlier that year — though the residential compound has been fenced and guarded by anti-epidemic workers.

As the news about Wang’s death made the rounds on the Chinese internet over the weekend, the local government of Hohhot was hit with another scandal on Monday when a group of unmasked local officials were caught on camera drinking at a community center, attracting criticism from internet users who called out the authorities for applying double standards while enforcing lockdown rules. In response, Hohhot’s disciplinary agency overseeing Party members announced various degrees of penalties for the officials in the viral video, with a few of them removed from their positions.

Studies have shown that social isolation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic — especially the experience of being holed up at home — can take a toll on people’s mental health. But the impact has been especially severe on those with histories of mental struggles.

On a Sinica episode in June, Dr. George Hu, a clinical psychologist based in Shanghai, pointed out that the lockdowns in Shanghai made it difficult for people to control their emotions, particularly negative ones such as anger, hopelessness, sadness, and despair. “We’re seeing negative emotions much more easily triggered. We’re seeing emotional difficulties, relational difficulties. Difficulties between couples, family members, people whom you live with being exacerbated and worsened during this period,” he said.

In China, the debate about the human cost of excessive COVID-19 controls has returned dramatically in recent weeks, when a series of lockdown-related tragedies made national headlines. Less than a week before Wang’s suicide, the father of a three-year-old boy in the northwestern city of Lanzhou received a great deal of attention on social media after accusing local lockdown enforcement workers of delaying medical help for his child when the boy was stricken with carbon monoxide poisoning, which eventually cost him his life.