From USA TODAY Network and wire reports
Alabama
Montgomery: Vaccines for COVID-19 are now widely available, but some people remain hesitant to take the shots, State Health Officer Scott Harris said Friday. After months of struggling with getting an adequate supply into the state, Harris said health officials are now trying to battle some people’s reluctance to sign up for doses. While people can be reluctant to take the vaccine for a variety of reasons, one is the false belief that the vaccine is more dangerous than the coronavirus, he said. “If you can identify one single issue that is a problem, it’s that there are people who are just convinced that the vaccine is somehow more dangerous than the disease,” Harris told reporters. “That’s a false belief we have to try to combat as often as we can. It’s simply not true.” Nearly one-third of Alabama’s population has received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. However, that figure ranks the state third from last
Virus-sniffing dog, Vegas boom, vaccine hecklers: News from around our 50 states msn.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from msn.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Opioid use, fentanyl deaths spike in Maryland amid pandemic
Callan Tansill-Suddath
Preliminary data from 2020 reveals a dramatic increase in deaths linked with opioids in Maryland, particularly fentanyl, and health officials cite the pandemic as a major factor.
The number of unintentional intoxication overdoses those involving all drugs and alcohol rose 18.7% to 2,773 in 2020 from 2,379 in 2019, according to data collected by the Maryland Department of Health.
In more than 90% of cases, opioids were detected in bodies postmortem, the highest rate recorded in the state’s history of collecting this data.
While too early to formally determine the extent to which COVID-19 has influenced this increase, experts agree the pandemic is likely to blame for the widespread increase in drug use.
Opioid use, fentanyl deaths in Maryland spike amid pandemic
CALLAN TANSILL-SUDDATH of Capital News Service
April 27, 2021
FacebookTwitterEmail
Preliminary data from 2020 reveals a dramatic increase in deaths linked with opioids in Maryland, particularly fentanyl; health officials blame the pandemic.
The number of unintentional intoxication overdoses those involving all drugs and alcohol rose 18.7% to 2,773 in 2020 from 2,379 in 2019, according to data collected by the Maryland Department of Health.
In more than 90% of cases, opioids were detected in bodies postmortem, the highest rate recorded in the state’s history of collecting this data.
While too early to formally determine the extent to which COVID-19 has influenced this increase, experts agree the pandemic is likely to blame for the widespread increase in drug use.