We have had many in “public health” presuming to lecture many of us who are church pastors about how irresponsible it is to hold worship during COVID. Turns out that there was never any serious outbreak associated with holding Christian church worship.

During all this we continue to have as at least serious heroin epidemic that has been in this country for at least years, if not this century and prior to that. Those same public health folks, don’t seem to presume to lecture those many who have been very irresponsible in this serious crisis. One public health person lectured pastors that they can’t just trust faith. Based on the outcomes of the last year, seems anything identifiable as “Christian” was pretty much untainted. Same can’t be said for much of the secular. So hey, faith? hmmmm maybe….

In the meantime, instead of a lot of the misjudgment of the past year and creating immensely more problems than solving; substance abuse increases, mental health issues increasing, suicides, depression PTSD, the enormous financial impact which mostly affected the underprivileged, there could be a lot better judgment and maybe taking a lot more responsibility for the things that you are responsible for such as bringing this heroin scourge under control. Hmmmm maybe a little more faith on your part might have some effect. It seems it may have done a lot for the church.

The following is the CNN account:

News Alert: Drug overdose deaths in 2020 hit highest number ever recorded, CDC data shows
From:	CNN News Alert <CNNNewsAlert@emailalerts.cnn.com>
To:
Date:	Wed, Jul 14, 2021 10:26 am

Drug overdose deaths in 2020 hit highest number ever recorded, CDC data shows

By Maggie Fox, CNN

Updated 10:00 AM ET, Wed July 14, 2021

https://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.471.1_en.html#goog_712843532

(CNN)Drug overdose deaths rose by close to 30% in the United States in 2020, hitting the highest number ever recorded, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Wednesday.More than 93,000 people died from drug overdoses in 2020, according to provisional data released by the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics. That’s a 29.4% increase from the 72,151 deaths projected for 2019.”Overdose deaths from synthetic opioids (primarily fentanyl) and psychostimulants such as methamphetamine also increased in 2020 compared to 2019. Cocaine deaths also increased in 2020, as did deaths from natural and semi-synthetic opioids (such as prescription pain medication),” the NCHS said in a statement.

Opioid Crisis Fast Facts“This is the highest number of overdose deaths ever recorded in a 12-month period, and the largest increase since at least 1999,” Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), part of the National Institutes of Health, said in a statement.

“These data are chilling. The COVID-19 pandemic created a devastating collision of health crises in America,” added Volkow.

As in recent years, inappropriate use of opioids was behind most of the deaths. The NCHS reported that overdose deaths from opioids rose from 50,963 in 2019 to 69,710 in 2020.Enter your email to subscribe to the Results Are In Newsletter with Dr. Sanjay Gupta.close dialog