Toronto Just Recorded The City's Most Overdoses Ever In A Single Month

50% more people died from overdoses than from COVID-19 in July.
Toronto Overdoses Skyrocketed To A Record Total In The Month Of July
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Toronto Board of Public Health Chair and City Councillor Joe Cressy took to Twitter this morning to shed light on the fact that Toronto overdoses have skyrocketed during the month of July.

A release by Toronto Public Health revealed on August 11 that 27 people in the city died of suspected overdoses in July. According to Cressy, that is 50% more people than the number (18) who passed away from COVID-19 last month.

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27

Number of fatal overdoses in Toronto in July 2020

Cressy is urging Torontonians to understand that the COVID-19 pandemic is not the only crisis we're facing.

"During the COVID-19 pandemic, suspected opioid overdose related deaths in Toronto have gone up by 85%," Cressy wrote on Twitter.

He is calling on the removal of the current cap on safe injection sites, which is currently set at 21. "These people were our friends, our relatives, our neighbours. We can't allow these tragic, preventable deaths to continue," wrote Cressy.

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  • Abby Neufeld
    Abby Neufeld was a writer at Narcity Canada. She received her Bachelor of Arts in English and Professional Communications at the University of Victoria. Her past work has been published in The Toronto Star, Bitch Media, Canadian Dimension, This Magazine, and more. In 2019, Abby co-founded The New Twenties, an environmentally-focused literary and arts magazine.

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