Coronavirus creates danger of a spike in substance abuse

After COVID-19, we will most likely witness a surge of mental and behavioral health cases, including substance abuse and addiction problems, that will dwarf the opioid crisis and strain communities throughout the nation.

How can we predict this? Immediately following the Great Recession, suicides rose by 13% and were attributed to skyrocketing unemployment. Over the past four weeks, more than 26 million people in the United States have filed for unemployment, the highest number of claims in American history. To put this in context, this is significantly larger than the entire population of the state of New York, which is currently 19.45 million.