Washington, D.C. – With over 30 million newly unemployed workers in the United States due to the COVID-19 pandemic, debate has broken out over whether the response to the pandemic has been worse than the virus itself. “When the economy drops, suicides and overdoses go up. We can’t ignore that data when we’re looking at the overall picture” said Dr. Andrew McIntyre of the Center for Economic Growth. “It’s okay” responded Derick Fielder, a clinically depressed man who recently lost his job as a groundskeeper at FedEx field. “I’m used to being ignored and I don’t really have the energy to argue about this.”

In a political win for those pushing for extended quarantine periods, a spokesman for the Association of Depressed Losers issued a joint statement with the head of the Union of Opioid Addicts declaring that their membership would promise not to kill themselves either intentionally by their own hands, or inadvertently through increased drug abuse brought on by unemployment. “We’re all in this together, and if that means going completely against our nature to save the lives of people more important than us… so be it.”