LETTER: There is no Clark County teen suicide trend

Victor Joecks points that there were nine youth suicides in Clark County in 2019 and 18 in 2020 (“Depths of despair,” Jan. 27 column). He then hints that COVID school closures caused this increase. The trouble with this argument: The year 2018 saw 20 youth suicides, so there is no trend. Adult suicides — which typically average more than 400 a year in Clark County — were actually down in 2020.

I’m not making light of the tragedy. I’m simply pointing out that there is a lot of uncertainty in the statistics of small numbers.