According to preliminary data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), U.S. deaths increased in the first half of the COVID-19 pandemic.
More than 87,200 people in the US die from drug overdoses, mainly related to opioids, in a twelve-month period from September 2019 to September 2020, according to the data Published Wednesday (April 16). But officials predict there were likely to be more than 3,000 additional deaths due to overdose that were not officially reported.
This is the highest number of deaths from overdose since the opioid epidemic began in the 1990s. according to The New York Times. It is also a setback due to the slight decrease in overdose deaths that the US experienced for the first time in decades in 2018.
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The increase in overdose deaths began in the months leading up to the pandemic, but then increased during the pandemic last year. The number of overdose deaths from September 2019 to September 2020 was 28.8% higher than the overdose deaths from September 2018 to September 2019.
The biggest increases in deaths occurred in April and May 2020, when many states were under the strictest barrier, people were losing their jobs, and according to the Times, the fears and tensions of the pandemic were widespread.
‘What we saw especially in the early days of COVID, but to date, is that the pandemic is really people from the addiction to services to addiction, from the reduction of harm services and from the communities and networks they use to stay safe and avoid overdoses, ”said Dr. Jessica Taylor, a specialist in addictive medicine at the Grayken Center for Addiction in Boston Medical Center and assistant professor of medicine at Boston University of Medicine. Boston 25 News.
Access to telemedicine and pharmaceuticals to treat addiction disorders is key to reversing the trend, Taylor said.
Most of the overdose drugs were due to illegally manufactured fentanyl and other synthetic opioids, but some were also due to stimulants such as methamphetamine, according to the Times. More and more deaths are among combinations of drugs, such as fentanyl or heroin mixed with stimulants.
“The highest increase in opioid mortality, mainly driven by fentanyl, is now among black Americans,” said Dr. Nora Volkow, the director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, said at an addiction conference last week. “And if you look at the death rate from methamphetamine, it’s icy to realize that the risk of dying from an overdose of methamphetamine is 12 times higher among Native Americans and Alaska natives than other groups.”
The new report is based on data from the National Vital Statistics System database.
Originally published on Live Science.