Last year, more people in San Francisco died of overdoses than of Covid-19

[baby]

I live here and to anyone who doesn’t know san francisco this might help explain why I am not surprised (and probably anyone living here isn’t as well):

- Everybody wears a mask here. Everyone. Even vaccinated people and children. It’s taken extremely seriously. And I’m not even talking about social distancing. Everything has been closed since the beginning of the virus and indoor dining is merely re-opening.

- san francisco has the largest homeless population I’ve seen in the world (and I’ve traveled and lived in a bit everywhere in the world including many poor countries). On top of that, drug is hitting homeless people hard. It’s extremely common to see someone shooting themselves with a syringe here.

[awb]

I don’t know what’s going on here either with masks.

30-50 year old adults outside, alone, in direct sunlight, exercising, dozens of feet away from anyone else are still wearing masks. No doubt they’re fully vaccinated by now as well.

And multiple times a day you see people driving alone in cars wearing masks.

Just the other week, we overheard a young girl commenting on a woman not wearing a mask, “she’s a bad person, isn’t she mommy?” “No, she’s not a bad person, just inconsiderate”, the mother replied. This was in response to a fully vaccinated adult walking in a state park alone, in broad daylight, 3-4x father away than social distancing guidelines require.

I’m glad we took COVID seriously here earlier and longer than most states, but now that several states are reporting 0 deaths and vaccination rates are climbing the fear of an explosion of cases should hopefully be subsiding.

In the beginning comparing mental health to a potentially uncontrolled global pandemic I think was a serious misunderstanding of how exponential growth works, but now that the pandemic is getting under control it makes sense to weigh mental health more heavily.

[StavrosK]

I don't know about SF specifically, but according to [1], California is doing about average for the US and is at the world's top 30 (higher is worse) for deaths per million, so I'd guess it's more #2 than #1.

Is SF doing significantly better than the rest of California, in general? Hopefully now enough people are vaccinated that the rates have dropped.

[annexrichmond]

I’m not sure why you cite consistent mask usage as the primary reason.

What I imagine to be a more likely cause is that there is a large proportion of SF’s population (esp compared to other cities) that are professionals who have the privilege to be able to work from home without worrying about losing their jobs. Couple that with vast grocery and food delivery services. So staying home is more convenient than most places

[jmcgough]

Most people dying from drug overdoses aren't homeless.

[te_chris]

Find it strange the way the US has gone all in for masks while in the UK it's only inside.

[blumomo]

To say "Mask mandates are useful b/c we have more drug dead than covid dead" is not logically plausible. The fact that measure have been useful rather shows wishful thinking to me.

[cozos]

I live in San Francisco. I look at pictures of (maskless) people on billboards and have to stop myself from judging them.

[threatofrain]

Don’t SJ and LA have bigger homeless pop?

[dehrmann]

For an article that doesn't focus on SF, that's an odd headline, and not a big surprise for anyone who's seen the Civic Center Bart station: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gT5NULvRSk

SF is an oddity because of its homeless problem, open-air drug market, not being too concerned with either, but being incredibly concerned over covid, so this outcome isn't surprising.

[StavrosK]

Yes but that's a poor people problem, so who cares?

I don't think it's possible for these things to be solved at any level lower than the federal, you can apply some band-aids but ultimately you need a stronger social safety net, which the US seems culturally averse to.

[fallingknife]

2% of my HS class has died of drug overdoses, and it is the opposite of poor. OK, small sample size, but it's safe to conclude that it's not a "poor people problem."

[baby]

You are absolutely right. SF is just the symptom of a national homeless crisis in the US. As long as the US isn’t willing to help its people, more liberal cities like SF will lay the price.

[Gibbon1]

After the real estate bubble crashed in 2008 policy makers decided to try to reinflate the bubble and at the same time limit the supply of housing to make sure it stayed inflated. They succeeded, prices are higher than the last bubble and we're short a couple million units of housing.

The able bodied people living in tents in major cities the the victims of that success.

[worik]

Better drugs would be a good start.

Better drug laws would help that

[wodenokoto]

Overdoses aren’t contagious.

We are not really afraid of the current levels of COVID, we are afraid of the potential spread of COVID that can happen so rapidly that hospitals and other critical infrastructure will have to close because everybody is sick.

It’s not even the mortality rate of COVID that has caused a global lockdown.

[Red_Leaves_Flyy]

>Overdoses aren’t contagious.

But they do tend to cluster. Many people overdose because their supply is unusually strong, or they're clean and use what they would've taken at their previous tolerance. Knowing this we can expect more overdoses to happen in black markets, and the recently released (from rehab, prison, hospital, etc).

[TheOtherHobbes]

Political and social conditions that contribute to overdoses and other forms of suicide are contagious - socially and politically.

But they require political and social solutions, and vaccines can't provide those.

[SergeAx]

> more people in San Francisco died of overdoses than of covid-19

Maybe this is because anti-covid measures were more efficient than anti-overdosing ones? Regarding the obvious question "Should San-Francisco pay more attention to overdosing" - I don't know, looks like much more people are at risk of dying because of covid than because of overdosing.

[krankthat]

Is this evidence of the effectiveness of following CDC guidelines, or evidence that opiates are still a bigger problem?

[mathieubordere]

Are prescription opioids still being widely prescribed as a painkiller these days in the US?

[WarOnPrivacy]

Depends on the state. Many (if not most) have declared some sort of war on pain relief. In the worst, effective pain meds are all but impossible to get.

My adult son was recently cycling and sent flying by a jeep. He's in tons of pain but none of the injuries are serious. The ER isn't willing to Rx anything stronger than ibuprofen.

I recent had abdominal surgery. I had to beg just to get Tramadol. I've a friend with crippling arthritis, who'd responsibly taken opioids for years and was cut off after the state passed draconian anti-opioid laws. This is forcing him to consider actually risky drugs just so he can function at minimal levels.

At some point we need to give a crap about the millions who've lost their quality of life due to anti-opioid hysteria.

We are WAY past time to stop conflating typical Rx pain meds with blackmarket fentanyl. The bulk of the pill mill problem was tackled a decade ago. News reporting on opioid overdoses that infers Rxs are the major current driver is patently false.

[WesleyHale]

Anecdotal, but ~a week after my surgery 3 years ago I told my doctor I quit taking my pain meds 2 days post-op as I wasn't in pain anymore and don't like pills. I was initially given a 14 day supply. Upon hearing this he asked me if I needed more or would like a stronger variant.

This was at a higher tier facility that works on professional athletes in the NFL and MLB.

[reidjs]

Social distancing works then? Seriously, I don’t think anyone doubted that heart disease/car accidents/opioids are more life threatening than covid. It’s just the devil we don’t know.