2020 is deadliest year ever for Cook County ODs
Cook County will end 2020 with its deadliest year for opioid overdoses, according to data from the medical examiner’s office that underscores how a chronic public health crisis raged to record levels amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The county’s confirmed opioid overdose deaths this year have already surpassed last year’s recordbreaking tally, with 1,498 cases compared with 2019’s 1,277, according to chief medical examiner Dr. Ponni Arunkumar.
There are more than 600 death cases still pending, and about 70% to 80% of them are expected to be ruled as opioid-related. Arunkumar said Cook County is on track to exceed 2,000 opioid deaths this year.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has overshadowed the opioid crisis this year, but this crisis deserves our attention,” Arunkumar said at a news conference Wednesday. “For 2,000 families across Cook County, (2020) will be remembered as the year that opioids took their son or daughter, parent, sibling and uncle or dear friend. These are losses that could and should be prevented.”
Blacks and Latinos make up 63% of the deaths even though they represent less than half of the county’s total population, she said. Men account for more than three-quarters of the cases. The 45- to 54-year-old age group is most likely to die from an overdose, followed by 55- to 64-yearolds.
“We’re in a very bad place,” said Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle said at the news conference. “This is an extraordinary time, and surely levels of stress and anxiety are very high, and sometimes folks are tempted to deal with that stress and anxiety with self-medication.”
Arunkumar said 2020’s caseload was already above the same period last year before the pandemic, but there was a spike after Gov. J.B. Pritzker issued his stay-at-home order in March. Fentanyl, an extremely powerful synthetic drug, was the most common opioid in the cases this year.
Officials with the Cook County Department of Public Health revealed a multiyear project with the nonprofit Treatment Alternatives for Safe Communities to curb opioid overdoses in suburban Cook County. It will kick off with a partnership among 12 police departments and communities for naloxone distribution and “deflection sites,” senior medical officer Dr. Kiran Joshi said.
Naloxone is a medication that rapidly reverses opioid overdose. Deflection entails approaching someone who is at high risk of an overdose, has previously overdosed or is in need of substance abuse treatment and connecting them with case management and other treatment options that don’t involve the criminal justice system or emergency departments, according to Jac Charlier, executive director of TASC’s Center for Health and Justice.
Other resources provided would include help with housing, transportation and employment.
As of Wednesday, 78 law enforcement officers were trained in naloxone administration and 169 kits were disseminated, Joshi said. The goal is to give out 2,500 kits by the end of September and train 1,900 officers in their use.
The program is funded by a multiyear grant from the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Joshi said.
Three suburban police chiefs who participated in a pilot of the project spoke at the news conference about how pervasive opioids are in some areas. Maywood police Chief Vladimir Talley said his ZIP code 60153, which also includes Broadview, has one of suburban Cook County’s highest mortality rates in opioid overdoses. His officers have deployed naloxone at least 42 times, often on a weekly basis, he said.
“At one point, the entire length of 159th Street was nicknamed the Heroin Highway,” Markham police Chief Terry White said. “At its height, we were seeing two to three deaths by overdose every month. One death is too many.”