You are reading

Queens Opioid Crisis Surges During COVID-19: DA Katz

Michael Longmire (Unsplash)

June 1, 2020 By Michael Dorgan

Queens is in the grips of an opioid overdose epidemic.

The number of people who have died from an opioid overdose has shot up in 2020, Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said Monday.

In the first five months this year, Queens County recorded 86 suspected opioid overdoses – a 56 percent jump in overdose deaths compared to the same period in 2019. In the first five months of 2019, 55 people had died from a suspected opioid overdose.

The spike follows a period when the number of suspected opioid overdoses appeared to have leveled off. For instance, there were 265 opioid overdose deaths in 2019, up slightly from 251 the year before.

The spike in numbers come as Queens is being hit with coronavirus. There have been over 6,200 confirmed or probable deaths from the virus in Queens, according to the latest official city-data.

District Attorney Melinda Katz (Katz for DA)

Katz noted that opioid addiction remains one of the greatest public health threats in a generation.

Opioids are extremely deadly, Katz said, particularly when illicitly manufactured with fentanyl and other derivatives.

Last year, around 60 percent of opioid overdose deaths in Queens were from such ingredients, she said.

She said America is in the grips of an opioid epidemic with over 67,000 recorded deaths involving the drug nationwide in 2018, citing the latest CDC data.

email the author: news@queenspost.com
No comments yet

Leave a Comment
Reply to this Comment

All comments are subject to moderation before being posted.

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Recent News

NY Hall of Science debuts CityWorks, its largest exhibition in over a decade

The New York Hall of Science in Corona opened its largest interactive exhibition in more than a decade on Saturday, May 3. The exhibition explores the often invisible inner workings of the built urban environment.

CityWorks is housed in a 6,000 square foot gallery, and the exhibit was created by a team of NYCSI exhibit developers, researchers, and educators over the past five years. Visitors will have the opportunity to explore the intricate systems and engineering that enable cities to function, including how they break, evolve, and endure.

Twenty people indicted in Queens-based $4.6M vehicle theft ring after three-year probe: DA

Twenty individuals were indicted and variously charged in a wide-ranging scheme to steal cars in Queens, throughout New York City and its suburbs, following a three-year investigation by the Queens District Attorney’s Office, the NYPD, and the New York State Police dubbed “Operation Hellcat,” into the criminal enterprise based in Queens.

Some of the vehicles were stolen from owners’ driveways, some with the keys or key fobs inside. The stolen vehicles were often sold through advertisements on social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. The defendants are charged in nine separate indictments for a total of 373 counts, Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz announced on Thursday.