The Facts
According to a new Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report focusing on more than a dozen types of deaths directly caused by drinking, the alcohol-related death rate in the US rose nearly 30% in the first year of the COVID pandemic.
The CDC previously reported that such deaths had increased in 2020 and 2021, but the study released Friday provided more details, including the increase from 39k deaths in 2019 to 52k in 2020.
The Spin
Narrative A
The pandemic was a traumatic event, and those types of events always cause an increase in drinking. Combine this with easy access to and the social acceptability of alcohol, along with the overuse of anxiety-provoking social media and the internet, and you have a huge crisis that can only be addressed with better government policies in terms of screenings and treatments.
Narrative B
It’s criminal government policies, like forcing workers into COVID-infested workplaces and children and teachers into schools too soon, that have brought us to this point. A moral and scientific solution is needed to help the working class defeat America's epidemic of addiction and take power back from the corporations and politicians that put wealth above safety.