After a decline in the previous year, drug overdose deaths in the United States rose by 18 percent in the 12-month period beginning in June 2019 and ending in May 2020. Overdose deaths were already on the rise, according to the CDC in 2019, but accelerated during the first months of the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic.
A new CDC report reveals that approximately 81,230 people suffered a fatal overdose in the United States over the 12-month period. It is the largest number of drug overdoses ever recorded over a one-year period.
According to estimates, the report says that the biggest monthly increases occurred in March and April, coinciding with the start of the coronavirus pandemic, the initial lockdowns and the feverish height of media hysteria about the virus. The estimates for overdose deaths in those two months are the highest since the preliminary 12-month estimates were calculated in January 2015.
The CDC says the deaths were mainly caused by overdose with synthetic opioids such as illegally manufactured fentanyl, but also noted a significant rise in deaths with psychostimulants with abuse potential, such as methamphetamine.
While the media remains constantly up to date on the death toll and coronavirus rate, the damage caused by the lockdowns is rarely shown to the public.
In May, after several weeks of painful lockdowns, hundreds of doctors signed a letter to President Trump calling the lockdowns an “incident involving mass casualties.”
These include 150,000 Americans per month who would have discovered a new cancer through routine screening that didn’t happen, millions who missed routine dental care to resolve and prevent problems strongly linked to heart disease / death cases of stroke, heart attack, and child abuse. The number of calls from suicide hotlines has increased by 600%, “the doctors wrote.
The birth rate in the United States is also expected to drop significantly. The Brookings Institute estimates that there will be between 300,000 and 500,000 fewer births in the next year as a result of the pandemic. The number is up significantly from the previous year’s drop of 44,172 births.
Early indicators also suggest that suicides are on the rise, although official data is not available. In Japan, for example, more people committed suicide in the month of October than died from COVID-19 during the pandemic.
And a new study analyzing income and poverty in the United States found that nearly 8 million Americans fell into poverty in the summer. According to one of the authors of the study, it is the largest increase in poverty recorded in one year since the government first began detecting poverty 60 years ago.
Even the World Health Organization (WHO) has recognized that lockdowns hurt poor people and should be largely avoided.
“Lockdowns have only one consequence that you should never belittle, and that is that poor people get a lot poorer,” said Dr. Nabarro, WHO’s special envoy for COVID-19, in October.
Seems like a lot of bad things outweigh all the good things that come out of the lockdowns. Governors and local leaders must remember these negative consequences before relocking.