Deaths from overdose in the U.S. appear to be increasing during the coronavirus pandemic

Matthew Davidson had defeated his heroin addiction. The 31-year-old was attending a group recovery meeting. He was working in his favorite restaurant. He was an uncle who loved his baby nephew.

After that, a coronavirus pandemic occurred. Davidson lost his job. He came home alone in an apartment near Georgetown, Kentucky — depressed and longing for his recovery support group to stop gathering in person, his cousin Melanie Wyatt said. It was.

On May 25, his girlfriend went home to find him dead from a drug overdose.

Davidson was part of a surge in deaths from overdose that hit Kentucky this spring. May was the worst month of overdose for at least five years. As of the end of August, the state had nearly the same number of overdose deaths as in 2019.

Not only that. National data are incomplete, but available information suggests that US drug overdose deaths are on track to reach record highs. Addiction specialists have blamed pandemics, causing stress and isolation for people, disrupting treatment and recovery programs, and contributing to increasingly dangerous illicit drug supplies.

Before the arrival of the coronavirus, the United States was in the midst of one of the most deadly drug overdose epidemics in its history, with a record 71,000 overdose deaths last year.

This year’s aggregates could exceed that, according to preliminary mortality data from nine states reviewed by the Associated Press and national data on reported emergency response to drug overdose.

Even if the coroner’s office has not been thinned by the pandemic, inspections and death investigations can take time, so national figures can take months to aggregate. Last week, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention posted a count up to March, when COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths surged in the northeast, and stay-at-home orders and other antivirus measures began.

Experts say the full effect of these closures will not be seen until April and May. Still, the latest numbers show that deaths are on the rise. From April 2019 to March 2020, nearly 74,000 overdose deaths were counted from the 68,000 reported during the comparison period a year ago.

“The new CDC data confirms our concern that COVID-19 has already exacerbated the catastrophic overdose crisis,” said the Drug Policy Alliance, a non-profit organization focused on the issue of illegal drug use. Jules Netherlands, who oversees the study of

AP reviewed preliminary overdose mortality statistics from nine states: Colorado, Connecticut, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Missouri, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Texas, and Washington. Most of the data are comparable to previous years, and those numbers are higher than those reported in the same month of 2019, and in some cases show a significant difference in deaths from overdose. ..

In Connecticut, for example, the number of deaths from preliminary overdose by the end of July increased by more than 19% compared to the same period last year. By the end of August, it increased by 9% in Washington, 28% in Colorado and 30% in Kentucky.

Even before the emergence of the virus, deaths from overdose were on the rise. Therefore, 2020 may have been a bad year without a pandemic, said Dana Kesinbury, who oversees a project at the University of Kentucky that focuses on deaths from state overdose.

That said, the coronavirus played a role in exacerbating the overdose epidemic, but she added that years of research were needed to organize the exact method.

The available data suggests an acceleration since the COVID-19 hit. In almost all states reviewed by AP, overdose mortality peaked in April or May and then declined slightly. Experts warned that it does not necessarily mean that the peak has passed. The number in the more recent months will probably increase as more autopsies are completed.

There are other signs of increased overdose.

ODMAP, a project to track police and emergency calls in response to alleged overdose from thousands of agencies in 49 states, found that 62% of counties sending data to the project increased after the blockade began. .. On another scale, reports of initial overdose increased by more than 17 percent.

“All indicators seem to indicate the fact that drug-related activity is increasing nationwide. Unfortunately, overdose,” said Deputy Director of a federal-approved grant program that oversees ODMAP. Jeff Bison says.

Since the mid-1990s, the increase in deaths from overdose in the United States has been caused by abuse of prescription opioid analgesics. Gradually, many turned to cheap street drugs such as heroin and the more deadly drug fentanyl. In 2015, heroin began to die more than prescription painkillers and other medications. In 2016, fentanyl and its close relatives became the largest drug murderers.

Fentanyl and methamphetamine (methamphetamine, which is often contaminated with fentanyl) are currently the most common murderers, although comprehensive data on which drugs were used in 2020 overdose deaths are not yet available.

Dr. Mark Tindall, a medical professor at the University of British Columbia, who studies deaths from overdose, said the pandemic blocked heroin imports. Meanwhile, stimulants and fentanyl continue to grow.

“Overall, COVID was making the supply of illicit drugs even worse, making it even more deadly,” Tindal said. “That’s one of the reasons things get worse. The risk of injecting poison is higher than it was before COVID.”

Second, it affects the treatment and counseling of addictions.

The counseling session went online after a stay-at-home order and other measures were taken.

Robert Pack of East Tennessee State University said: “Connecting is one of the driving forces of recovery, so it’s not the same as being in a deeply connected place that comes from direct involvement. Puck, who studies the problem of addiction, is unemployed, isolated, Depression “will challenge people in all directions,” he said.

That’s what happened to Matthew Davidson, Kentucky.

He died of an overdose of fentanyl, but Wyatt blames his cousin’s death on a pandemic.

“If this isolation hadn’t happened, someone might have been with Matthew,” Wyatt told The Associated Press. “It’s quite possible that someone who might have saved him was there.”

Wyatt said his cousin last went to rehab about a year and a half ago, but it seemed to stick. He had greatly benefited from his group addiction recovery conference, but they ended when the virus struck. And the online meeting wasn’t for him.

“Being surrounded by good people, calm people are of paramount importance to recovering drug addicts,” Wyatt said. “If it disappears, trouble will occur.”