Fatal drug overdoses spiked to record highs last year in states across the United States, with pandemic-driven isolation and loss of routine the likely factor behind the surge in deaths. State-level fatal drug overdose data covering the 12-month period ending in September 2020, the closest proxy available for last year as a whole, shows drug deaths surged at least 26.8 percent in the United States, with the District of Columbia up 56.8 percent, Louisiana 53.2 percent, Kentucky 49.2 percent, and West Virginia 49.0 percent, according to incomplete data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). According to new preliminary data from the Washington Department of Health, there were 1,649 overdose deaths in 2020, nearly 31 percent more than the year prior and a figure twice as large as any other year in the past decade. “It is reasonable to believe the psychological, social, and economic impacts of COVID-19 led to …