2020 has been a tough year for many of us, least of all those of us who have developed an addiction to opioids.

The “opiate epidemic” has dragged on for many years, and successive Administrations have lacked the will to fully fund a solution to this unarguably dire situation.

It’s thus not difficult to predict that the opioid epidemic would be worsened by a global pandemic, a pandemic that’s disproportionately impacted the US compared to other Western nations.

Although the full impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the opioid epidemic won’t be fully understood for many months to come, we can see from real-time tracker data that overdose deaths are set to significantly increase in 2020.

This is particularly disappointing given overdose deaths were projected to decrease over the next few years.

To fully explore the reasons why the opioid epidemic has been worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic, and to present data to illustrate its impact, we’ve examined hundreds of data points and reports relating to overdose deaths in all 50 US states.

Written by Ollie C for Rehab 4 Addiction ~ August 24, 2020

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