The probability of a fairly drastic rise in deaths of despair is very concerning— but there are two things being ignored by politicians who shift the focus to this concern. 1– if they were legitimately worried about this, they would expand access to mental healthcare and 2– they would put measures in place to ease the financial burden of joblessness instead of heightening it by giving people an ultimatum of working while risking their lives or possibly slowly dying from starvation because the country’s still not safe. It’s a false choice, and we shouldn’t keep making their job of ignoring the needs of regular Americans easier for them. If they have trillions for Wall Street yet again, they can definitely afford to help take financial concerns off the plates of people who are actually depending on intervention and don’t just want it for their tenth yacht.