Erie County Health officials say they're now balancing two public heath emergencies: the coronavirus and opioid overdoses.

"People are alone. They’re in their home. They’re not in public places. With the social distancing, which is good, we need to do this for COVID. But people are isolated, so if there is an overdose, they are alone, so we can't get [naloxone] to them," said Erie County Opiate Epidemic Task Force Director Cheryll Moore.

The task force consists of experts from various fields and looks at different ways to address the opioid problem.

"One of the things that unfortunately we're seeing is an increase in overdoses as a result of people self-medicating with drugs," said Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz.

Erie County Health Commissioner Dr. Gale Burstein says her department is especially concerned about an increase in fatal overdoses in March and in April.

"We haven't finished doing the [toxicology] screens on most of them yet, however the crime scenes are being reported to us," said Dr. Burstein. "There is a lot of white powder. We suspect there is a lot of cocaine-laced with fentanyl."

Erie County is one of many municipalities involved in the Overdose Detection Mapping Application program. The site is now monitoring how the COVID-19 pandemic and opioid overdoses are connected.

“As the COVID and coronavirus pandemic struck our community, we're also seeing an impact in every aspect of law enforcement work, including how we respond  to overdoses," said Cheektowaga Police Chief Brian Gould.

Those changes include use of PPE for police officers administering naloxone. Chief Gould says his department has also submitted information to the county on where community naloxone dispensary boxes should be installed.

"The town of Cheektowaga has a full-time behavioral health specialist so if they are struggling themselves or a family member who doesn't know what to do with their loved one," Gould added.

Opioid addiction specialists are also available through Erie County.

"Treatment agencies are working a lot with telehealth for counseling," added Moore. "We're not asking people to come into places unless they really need to."

"Our goal is to get people treatment so they stay alive long enough to overcome the addiction," Chief Gould added.

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