For the News-Register
Photo by Nora Edinger
Brianna Hickman of West Virginia Northern Community College is counting on zero balances for some studentsâ college costs. Thanks to a federal grant aimed at opioid addiction, students in a substance abuse prevention and intervention program may have all educational costs covered.
WHEELING When Operation Warp Speed took aim at a virus that sprang to Goliath-sized in early 2020 going on to kill more than 500,000 Americans in a single year the big-funding method seemed to work. Vaccines were generated. Clinics popped up like dandelions. The dying slowed.
Yet, that other giant of a healthcare problem an opioid epidemic that has killed about 800,000 Americans since it began in the 1990s continues to rack up deaths, with overdose fatalities accelerating as pandemic deaths slowly fade.