Drug Overdose Deaths In California ‘Far Exceeded’ COVID-19 Deaths
More residents of San Francisco have died from drug-related overdose during the past year compared to fatalities related to the coronavirus disease.
According to statistics reported by The Associated Press, a “record-high” of 621 people died from overdoses in 2020 — or more than three times higher — than the 173 people who died from COVID-19 in the area.
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This year’s drug-related deaths was also 40% higher than the 441 people who died in 2019. The overdose statistics saw a 70% increase from the numbers seen in 2018.
“The data reflects the number of times people report using Narcan to the Drug Overdose Prevention and Education (DOPE) Project, a city-funded program that coordinates San Francisco’s response to overdose, or return to refill their supply,” The AP said, referring to the medication administered to block the effects of opioids.
Around 2,610 potential overdoses were prevented by Narcan.
It noted that according to DOPE Project officials, since the numbers are self-reported, “they are probably a major undercount.”
The AP said overdose-related deaths happened across in “every part” of San Francisco — which currently remains under strict ‘stay-at-home’ order.
Most of the overdose deaths took place in low-income housing areas and city-funded hotel rooms for homeless people, with 40% of the deaths particularly in the Tenderloin and South of Market neighborhoods. Still, others died on sidewalks, in alleyways and in parks around the city.
Local media reported that the ‘skyrocketing overdoses’ could be attributed to the use of the highly potent painkiller fentanyl, which has swamped San Francisco’s drug supply.
“The crisis is deepening because fentanyl, which can be 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine, flooded the city’s drug supply,” the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
It added that the coronavirus pandemic has also disrupted some city services including housing and various treatment for opioid addiction — leaving many who rely on others to save them in an event of overdose, to be left uncheck due to the lockdown measures.
In May, University of California Hastings College of the Law along with local residents and businesses moved to sue the city over ‘insufferable’ conditions in the low-income neighborhoods in San Francisco amid COVID-19 saying the area has become “a containment zone” for drug and homelessness issues in the city.
“Even before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the de facto policy of the City and County of San Francisco to use the Tenderloin community as a containment zone had resulted in a dramatic decline in the livability and safety of the neighborhood,” the lawsuit said then.
“The deplorable conditions tolerated by the City in the Tenderloin are not permitted in other neighborhoods in San Francisco. This is a matter of fundamental fairness; what is a city-wide problem should not be allowed to weigh disproportionately on a low-income working- class neighborhood. San Francisco should be prohibited from abandoning a single neighborhood, in an apparent effort to spare other neighborhoods,” it added.
The lawsuit noted that “open-air drug sales and other criminal activity, plus crowds of drug users and sidewalk-blocking tents, pervade and threaten the health and lives of all of the Tenderloin’s residents.”
Strict measures to contain the coronavirus pandemic — which has a current fatality rate of about 1.77% in the US — are being implemented across mostly Democrat-leaning states, causing the opioid crisis to blow as Americans are banned from participating in outside activities.
As a result, the number of drug-related overdose deaths across the US have also peaked this year from the onslaught of the coronavirus pandemic last spring.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said for the last 12 months ending, more than 81,000 people died from drug-related overdose — representing the “highest number ever recorded” for a 12-month period.
“The disruption to daily life due to the COVID-19 pandemic has hit those with substance use disorder hard,” CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield said earlier.
“As we continue the fight to end this pandemic, it’s important to not lose sight of different groups being affected in other ways. We need to take care of people suffering from unintended consequences,” he added.
