Story of the Week of September 29, 2020 on zReportage.com : ‘PERFECT STORM: COVID on OPIOIDS’ zReportage #755 by ZUMA Press’s stellar passionate award winning photographer Czech DAVID TESINSKY, 30, who specializes in sub-cultures, social topics and tells the stories that need to be told for ZUMA Wire Service. David’s beautiful series of images, tackles the issues of what is is happening in British Columbia on the ongoing Opioid crisis during the COVID-19 Pandemic. While the pandemic is front and center in Canadian governance, there is another equal and growing crisis that has been killing people for years and appears to not be getting the attention it deserves and needs in British Columbia in 2020. Opioid overdoses, deaths and the addiction cases rising. Before the pandemic, drug use had already burned a deadly path across the country, with over 4,500 overdose deaths in B.C. since 2016, when it was declared a public health emergency. In 2020, 170 people died of drug overdose in the province, while COVID claimed 229 lives. BC has opened several temporary new overdose prevention sites. Drug users and advocates have been calling for community support instead of policing. Safe injection sites instead of prison sentences, and affordable housing instead of temporary shelters. The Pandemic is drawing a big spotlight on short comings of BC opioid governance. Without a long-term plan to address the opioid crisis issues, British Columbia could see escalating deaths, long after COIVID is hopefully a bad memory. As the opioid crisis remains mostly out of control, it’s now colliding with the COVID Pandemic. Welcome to: ‘PERFECT STORM: COVID on OPIOIDS’
Scott Mc Kiernan, Founder & Editor-in-Chief, ZUMA Press
