july15, 2021

Andrew Campbell 

U.S. National Center for Health Statistics released data in the National Vital Statistics System (NVSS) database on July 14 for the “12 Month-ending Provisional Number of Drug Overdose Deaths” by jurisdiction from December 2019 to December 2020, with the number of overdose deaths in the United States reaching a new high of 93,000. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a major operating component of the US Department of Health and Human Services, conducted national provisional counts that included overdose deaths in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Officials said the rise was caused by the lethal prevalence of fentanyl, which has morphine-like properties but 50 to 100 times more potent, as well as pandemic-related stressors and problems accessing care, resulting in a record number that amounts to a 29 percent increase from 2019. The National Institute on Drug Abuse's director, Dr. Nora Volkow, agreed that this is the highest number of overdose deaths ever recorded in a 12-month period, and the largest increase since at least 1999.

According to the CDC, drug overdoses increased in all but two states in 2020: New Hampshire and South Dakota. There is no current evidence that more Americans began using drugs in 2020, according to Shannon Monnat, an Associate Professor of Sociology at Syracuse University who studies geographic patterns in overdoses. Rather, the increased deaths were most likely the result of people who were already struggling with addiction. According to Brandon Marshall, a Brown University public health researcher who surveys overdose trends, the United States was already dealing with its worst overdose epidemic, but the COVID pandemic has clearly exacerbated the crisis.

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