The Oneida County Overdose Response Team has issued an overdose spike alert for the community after seeing an increase in reports over the last two weeks.

"Unfortunately in the past 14 days, there's been about 20 overdoses, two of which were fatal,” said Oneida County Sheriff Robert Maciol.

The overdoses were primarily related to heroin, and two reports involved synthetic marijuana and cocaine.

"It's a concern for us when we see these spikes, because obviously there's a bad batch of heroin in our neighborhood, in our community,” Maciol says. “We are networking with other groups across the state and other parts of the country, so we can see trends when they're coming."

The spike alert is meant to keep the community informed of concerning narcotic trends.

"It puts everyone on alert to make sure that those family members that are dealing with someone in their life, or in their family that's dealing with a heroin addiction. We want them to be able to be aware that there's a bad batch in the area, we want them to make sure they have Narcan available,” said Maciol.

What caused the spike is unclear, but Sheriff Maciol and public health officials aren’t blaming the coronavirus pandemic.

"You can't say it's just because of the COVID pandemic that's going on that this has occurred, because we've had these spikes in the past,” said Oneida County Health Department Director Phyllis Ellis. “We surely don't want to mask it during the COVID problem so that we are ignoring other things and other health related issues in our communities."

But the pandemic has prompted the county to increase efforts to monitor overdose trends, and work to expand Narcan access.

Narcan is available at numerous pharmacies across the county. Individuals can dial 211, or text “opioid” to 898-211 for any assistance in finding Narcan, as well as treatment and recovery services.