Report: Pandemic a Role in Kentucky’s Record Overdose Deaths

August 4, 2021

(ABC News) – Fatal drug overdoses in Kentucky — an ongoing scourge that has ravaged communities in the state — surged nearly 50% last year and isolation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic was a “major contributing factor,” a state report concludes. More than 1,964 Kentuckians died from drug overdoses in 2020, according to the report from the Kentucky Justice and Public Safety Cabinet and the Office of Drug Control Policy. The official count easily eclipsed the state’s prior record level of fatal drug overdoses and mirrored a national increase in overdose deaths, the report said. (Read Full Article)