Whoops

As concern over the omicron variant mounts in California — with the state’s second case confirmed Thursday in Los Angeles County — another public health crisis is lurking in plain sight: the drug epidemic.

A jaw-dropping report released Wednesday by the UCLA Luskin Institute on Inequality and Democracy found that nearly 1,500 people, the vast majority believed to be homeless, died on the streets of Los Angeles during the pandemic — 40% because of a drug or alcohol overdose. The staggering number is almost certainly an undercount, experts say.