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In 2017, the governor of Illinois implemented a plan to halt the explosive growth of opioid

deaths in the state.

The plan was to cut those deaths by at least a third by the end of 2020.

2020 was going to be this turning point for Illinois.

Dua El-Dib is a reporter with ProPublica.

But early last year, Dua got a tip that the number of opioid related deaths might actually

be on the rise in the region.

So China colleague Melissa Sanchez started investigating.

They analyzed death records from the Cook County Medical Examiner's office and what they

found was alarming.

We found that opioid overdoses surged in Cook County and specifically in Chicago and

that those overdoses were disproportionately killing black residents.

I think by the summer we had seen about 1100 residents who had died of suspected or confirmed

opioid overdoses, which is about double the number from the year before.

Drug overdose deaths are on the rise all around the country.

This was a nationwide problem that we were seeing kind of start to rise before the pandemic

and then just continue as the pandemic ravaged our communities.

Yeah, absolutely.

So I guess Dua, this is the obvious question for me here, is whether we have a sense of

how much of this increase can be tied to the coronavirus pandemic?

So COVID didn't cause this spike, but like everything else that made it worse, the financial

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