The next time government officials rush to enforce a lockdown, they may want to consider one of the residual effects in 2020 as the pandemic forced the whole country to shelter in place for months. Alcohol-related deaths were responsible for more deaths of people under the age of 65 than COVID.
A new study by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism showed the incredibly negative impact the pandemic isolation let to.
After months of sifting through death certificates, the study found that over 99,000 people died from alcohol in 2020 – a 25.5 increase over the previous year. And though you’ll never see this reported by the CDC, alcohol-related factors led to the death of 74,408 people, slightly more than the 74075 that reportedly died from COVID in 2020.
Falling under the category of deaths caused by alcohol include alcohol poisoning, liver disease, and alcohol-related accidents. Before 2020, the average annual increase was 3.6% over the past 20 years.
Here’s what the study’s author, Aaron White, told the New York Times.
“The assumption is that there were lots of people who were in recovery and had reduced access to support that spring and relapsed,” which points to the fact that treatment and support programs were disrupted because of government leaders choosing to lock the population down.
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