evidence: If Your Time is short • Overdose deaths in West Virginia have increased by about 45% between calendar year 2019 and calendar year 2020, according to state data. [...] Between February 2020 and February 2021, the most recent period for which the CDC data is available, the number of cumulative overdose deaths in West Virginia in the previous 12-month period rose from 889 to 1,395. That’s an increase of 506, or almost 57%. The trend is not new: The number of overdoses in West Virginia has been rising since at least 2015. The same CDC data shows that in the 12-month period ending in February 2015, there were 653 overdose deaths in the state. So between 2015 and 2021, the number of overdoses in West Virginia rose by 114%.