The 2020 COVID-19 pandemic has made worse in every imaginable way. People with underlying medical conditions have been considered to be more at risk than others. In this paper, the risks associated with opioid addiction and how it has affected victims in Canada will be analyzed. Reports show that in British Columbia (BC), a new all-time high has been recorded. In 2020 alone, there were over 4,000 deaths related to opioids (Crabtree et al., 2020). This increase can be traced to the measures undertaken during the pandemic in BC. These measures caused what Papamihali et al. (2020) called a syndemic. This is a situation when multiple public health emergencies come together to make each other worse. The syndemic between the opioids crisis and COVID-19 in BC will be outlined seeking to understand the reason behind the unusually high number of deaths in that region in 2020.

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Opioid Crisis During Pandemic in BC
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Opioid Crisis During Pandemic in BC
The 2020 COVID-19 pandemic has made worse in every imaginable way. People with
underlying medical conditions have been considered to be more at risk than others. In this paper,
the risks associated with opioid addiction and how it has affected victims in Canada will be
analyzed. Reports show that in British Columbia (BC), a new all-time high has been recorded. In
2020 alone, there were over 4,000 deaths related to opioids (Crabtree et al., 2020). This increase
can be traced to the measures undertaken during the pandemic in BC. These measures caused
what Papamihali et al. (2020) called a syndemic. This is a situation when multiple public health
emergencies come together to make each other worse. The syndemic between the opioids crisis
and COVID-19 in BC will be outlined seeking to understand the reason behind the unusually
high number of deaths in that region in 2020.
Factors Responsible for High Death Toll in BC
The death toll due to opioids in BC can be attributed to three main factors. These are
social distancing effects, lack of support, and illicit drug toxicity. According to Enns et al.
(2020), these three factors explain the major part of the reason why the region had to deal with a
high death toll despite the crisis being classified as a public health emergency. The author
recounted that in 2016 after the classification of the problem as a health emergency, 7,072 deaths
have been recorded with a majority of those deaths being recorded in 2020 (). These factors will
be analyzed in the subsequent sections.
Social distancing effects
Once BC went into lockdown, social distancing was encouraged. People within the area
had to stay away from other people in a bid to curb the spread of the virus. While this measure
was instituted with good intentions, it had some adverse effects on victims of the opioid crisis. In

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particular, this directive contradicted what most victims of the crisis are encouraged to do—to
stay around other people. This helps to avoid overdosing on drugs. In most of the overdose
situations that have been recorded, 93% of them involved individuals who were alone, and the
feeling of aloneness drove them to overdose on the drug (Papamihali et al., 2020). Now with
COVID-19 measures discouraging people from coming together, addicts were left on their own.
This aloneness contributed to the high death toll from opioids in BC.
Enns et al. (2020) expanded this factor noting that since most of the people suffering
from opioids addiction relied on walking or other activities to keep their minds active, COVID-
19 made these escapes impossible. Now, individuals struggling with opioids could not engage in
activities such as running, attending events, or other engaging activities. At the same time, the
mention of the crisis and its capacity to kill people created mental stress in victims. This stress
led them to the use of opioids which is attributed to the eventual death of some of them during
2020.
Lack of support
The pandemic put a stop to most things forcing authorities all over to prioritize. The
choice of what was to be considered a vital service and what needed to be retained and what
could be shelved was a tough one. Unfortunately for opioid victims, the support offered by
community-based organizations was not prioritized (Norton & Kerr, 2020). As such, having
housing, clothes, and overdose prevention services available to them through these organizations
was not a reality. They had to face the pandemic, with their opioid struggle, like everyone else.
Crabtree et al. (2020) note that people with opioids addiction are likely to overdose when
faced with a tough situation. To them, these drugs offer an escape from the tough reality.
Unfortunately, most of them end up overdosing if not assessed and monitored. This is what

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happened during the pandemic. As opioid victims found themselves alone and stressed by the
pandemic, they turned to drugs which ended up taking their lives through overdoses (Crabtree et
al., 2020). Thus, the authorities’ decision to withdraw such services to prevent the spread of the
virus was to help the majority, but it ended up creating a big problem for people struggling with
opioids. To a large extent, the lack of these support services pushed some people to the brink.
Illicit drug toxicity
Another factor associated with opioids but not overdose is toxicity. This issue was
reported by Crabtree et al. (2020) and Papamihali et al. (2020). Both authors acknowledged the
increase in deaths in BC that were connected to toxicity. This was attributed to the disrupted
supply chain. People who depended on opioids for various reasons had to use what was readily
available. In most cases, the available drugs were not fit for consumption as they had
accumulated a lot of toxicity. However, they were the ones available and this led to a high
number of people using them which led to the death by toxicity.
In some cases, the toxicity did not kill but led to an increase in opioid addicts. The use of
the few available drugs was not in the right manner. There were cases of people who used some
drugs to relieve their anxiety due to the pandemic and ended up making themselves addicts. This
is because fentanyl for instance increases its addictive component when it overstays on the
shelves (Norton & Kerr, 2020). This led to some people overusing these drugs getting hooked on
them and some died as a result of this high toxicity.
Conclusion
In a nutshell, the opioid crisis did not stop once COVID-19 emerged. On the contrary, the
crisis worsened in BC. The number of deaths increased creating a new yearly record. The
reasons for this increase are attributed to the pandemic measures such as social distancing., being

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alone worsened the capacity of opioid addicts to avoid overdosing. As well, the lack of support
during the pandemic led to many victims turning to drugs to help them cope with the general
stress of the pandemic times. These factors combined led to the increased death toll from opioid
addiction in the BC region. The region was already a hotbed for opioids and the pandemic
managed to make matters worse.

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References
Crabtree, A., Lostchuck, E., Chong, M., Shapiro, A., & Slaunwhite, A. (2020). Toxicology and
prescribed medication histories among people experiencing fatal illicit drug overdose in
British Columbia, Canada. Canadian Medical Association. Journal, 192(34), 972.
https://doi.org/10.1503/cmaj.200191
Enns, A., Pinto, A., Venugopal, J., Grywacheski, V., Gheorghe, M., Kakkar, T., ... & Orpana, H.
(2020). Evidence-informed policy brief-Substance use and related harms in the context of
COVID-19: a conceptual model. Health Promotion and Chronic Disease Prevention in
Canada: Research, Policy and Practice, 40(11-12), 342.
Norton, A., & Kerr, T. (2020). Applying the lessons of COVID-19 response to Canada's
worsening opioid epidemic. EClinicalMedicine, 29.
Papamihali, K., Yoon, M., Graham, B., Karamouzian, M., Slaunwhite, A. K., Tsang, V., Young,
S., & Buxton, J. A. (2020). Convenience and comfort: reasons reported for using drugs
alone among clients of harm reduction sites in British Columbia, Canada. Harm
Reduction Journal, 17(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12954-020-00436-6