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Alcohol deaths spiked during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, with the age-adjusted rate of alcohol-induced deaths increasing 26% from 2019 to 2020, the CDC reported Friday.

About 49,000 people died from alcohol-related reasons in 2020, rising from around 39,000 in the previous year. Alcohol caused 13.1 deaths for every 100,000 people in 2020, up from 10.4 deaths for every 100,000 people in 2019, the CDC said, citing data from the National Vital Statistics System.

Alcohol deaths have gone up about 7% a year from 2000 to 2018, the CDC said, but the isolation and fear caused by the pandemic apparently caused people to drink more.

“We know that in large-scale traumatic events to the population, like 9/11 or Hurricane Katrina, people historically start drinking more. The pandemic has been, as we all know, a major stressor to our lives,” George F. Koob, PhD, director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, told CNN. Head over to WebMD to read the full story.