Drug deaths hit record highs in the United States.
In the year that the United States witnessed the highest number of corona deaths in the world, deaths due to high drug use also set an unprecedented record in this country.
According to the New York Times, according to figures released by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, drug-related deaths increased by almost 30 percent in 2020 to a record 93,000 deaths a year.
According to the report, although drug overdose deaths have been on the rise in all US states, they have risen significantly in the south and west of the country.
“This is a very embarrassing statistic, it is a historic and unprecedented and embarrassing event,” said Daniel Sikaron, a professor at the University of California who studies the heroin market.
Over 81,000 drug overdose deaths occurred in the United States in the 12 months ending in May 2020, the highest number of overdose deaths ever recorded in a 12-month period, according to recent provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
While overdose deaths were already increasing in the months preceding the 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, the latest numbers suggest an acceleration of overdose deaths during the pandemic.
“The disruption to daily life due to the COVID-19 pandemic has hit those with substance use disorder hard,” said CDC Director Robert Redfield, M.D. “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.”
According to the New York Times, drug-related deaths in the United States have risen so much in recent years that they have surpassed the country’s annual death toll from accidents, AIDS and firearms violence.
The country has seen the highest death toll from Covid 19 in the world since the outbreak of the Corona virus.
