KINGSTON – This is the perfect storm for opioid overdoses, Ulster County Executive Patrick Ryan says.
The infusion of deadly fentanyl in heroin and the emotional and economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic are resulting in a spike in overdoses and related deaths, he said.
“Through the month of July in 2020, we have had 37 fatal overdoses already. So halfway through the year, we already had more fatalities than we had in all of 2019. In the month of April alone, in the peak of the pandemic, we had 10 in the county just in that month,” Ryan said.
Ulster County has just been awarded $500,000 to fight the opioid epidemic and Ryan said the county will be rolling out new programs to combat that in the near future.