After a year-long pilot program in Kensington, the center of Philadelphia’s drug overdose crisis, researchers are hoping to test a smartphone app that helps citizens respond to overdoses citywide.

Over 49 consecutive nights throughout the pandemic, staff provided an immediate response for 155 individuals; supplied 162 individuals with naloxone and administered naloxone on three occasions to reverse potentially fatal drug overdoses.

Before the pandemic took hold, overdose deaths hit a national record of almost 71,000 in 2019, according to preliminary data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and published last week. The highest peak yet comes on the heels of a meager 4.1 percent decline in overdose deaths in 2018, at the time celebrated by President Trump as “tremendous” progress. That flimsy and fragile achievement has rapidly unraveled, and by all indicators, overdose deaths are on track to get even worse in 2020. Anecdotal reports and local data illustrate an alarming spike in overdoses since stay-at-home orders were issued in March.

The male suffered a near-fatal overdose on Albert Street but was saved by bystanders, including from nearby shops and addiction charity We Are With You. It comes days after another overdose victim’s life was saved by a passer-by just a few hundred metres away near the Cowgate underpass.

Who needs a free naloxone kit? Just about anyone who might come across an opioid overdose, according to a range of University of Alberta experts including a pharmacist, the head of campus security, a student volunteer and a public health scientist.