Opioid overdose and COVID-19

The rate of overdose fatalities has spiked in British Columbia during the pandemic. There were 186 people who died of an illicit drug overdose in June 2020, the highest total ever recorded for a single month in the history of the province, closely followed by 184 in July 2021

Even if you are in self-isolation, it’s important that you let someone know that you want to use drugs.

For example, you can let your support worker know when you are using. There are also some apps that you can download to connect with others while using opioids.

You can download the BeSafe app by following this link: https ://www.besafe.community/

This app offers peer-to-peer remote supervision and your peer can call help in the case you overdose.

To learn more about how to prevent overdose, please refer to our Overdose Module here (a link to the overdose module)