More Maine OD Deaths 3/1/20-12/31/22 Than All Pandemic COVID Deaths Under Age 80.
Posted by Ed Folsom
February 6, 2023
According to the recently released Maine Monthly Overdose Report for December 2022, 716 people died from drug overdoses in Maine during 2022. That’s only 77 fewer than the 793 people under age 70 who, Maine’s CDC reports,* died with COVID-19 during the entire pandemic through 2/5/2023.
The December monthly report shows that 79% of Maine’s 2022 overdose deaths involved non-pharmaceutical fentanyl, alone or combined with other drugs. Seventy-three percent of the deceased were males; 87% of the deaths occurred in people ages 18-59.
In contrast, Maine’s CDC reports that 2,518 of Maine’s 2,863 deaths with COVID-19 (87.9%) through 2/5/2023 occurred in people age 60 or older, with only 345 (12.1%) occurring in those under age 60.
Monthly drug overdose death numbers available from The Maine Drug Data Hub for years 2020 and 2021 show that there were 1,051 overdose deaths between March 1, 2020 and December 31, 2021. Adding 2022’s 716 overdose deaths brings us to a total of 1,767 overdose deaths from March 1, 2020 through the end of 2022.
The first COVID-19 death in Maine was reported in late March of 2020. Through February 5, 2023, Maine’s CDC reports a total of 1,551 COVID-19 deaths of people under age 80. In other words, 216 more people died of drug overdoses in Maine between March of 2020 and the end of 2022 (1,767) than all the recorded COVID-19 deaths in Maine of people under age 80 during the entire pandemic to date (1,551).
We are now running at an average of roughly 2 overdose deaths each day.
*Click tab for cumulative cases by age, then click link for csv file with most recent data by age.
**Scroll down to bar graph of monthly overdose deaths.
