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  2021-07-14

  US Overdose Deaths Hit Record 93,000 in Pandemic Last Year

  Overdose deaths soared to a record 93,000 last year in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. government reported Wednesday. That estimate far eclipses the high of about 72,000 drug overdose deaths reached the previous year and amounts to a 29% increase. "This is a staggering loss of human life," said Brandon Marshall, a Brown University public health researcher who tracks overdose trends. The nation was already struggling with its worst overdose epidemic but clearly "COVID has greatly exacerbated the crisis," he added. Lockdowns and other pandemic restrictions isolated those with drug addictions and made treatment harder to get, experts said.
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  2020-07-06

  Indigenous overdose deaths jumped drastically from January to May as COVID-19 crisis hit

  'Many of our community members have very specifically said they don’t feel safe going to the hospital or even calling for an ambulance for the fear that they will be treated badly and not receive any kind of support beyond the immediate need of treating an overdose,' Shannon McDonald, Acting Chief Medical Officer of the First Nations Health Authority, said Monday on a video-conference to discuss the data."