There were 48,344 suicides in 2018. That provides tragic but known baseline. It's ridiculous to think that "fear mongering" was the cause of those.
Also, that number above equates to 132 per day. Again very tragic. But last I checked there have been 272 COVID deaths just today.
WikipediaSuicide is a major national public health issue in the United States. The country has one of the highest suicide rates among wealthy nations. In 2018, there were 48,344 recorded suicides, up from 42,773 in 2014, according to the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). On average, adjusted for age, the annual U.S. suicide rate increased 24% between 1999 and 2014, from 10.5 to 13.0 suicides per 100,000 people, the highest rate recorded in 28 years. Due to the stigma surrounding suicide, it is suspected that suicide generally is underreported. In April 2016, the CDC released data showing that the suicide rate in the United States had hit a 30-year high, and later in June 2018, released further data showing that the rate has continued to increase and has increased in every U.S. state except Nevada since 1999. Surging death rates from suicide, drug overdoses and alcoholism, what researchers refer to as "deaths of despair", are largely responsible for a consecutive three year decline of life expectancy in the U.S. This constitutes the first three-year drop in life expectancy in the U.S. since the years 1915–1918.In 2015...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_the_United_States