Two bodies found on Quincy's Southern Artery
QUINCY — Police say they're waiting on toxicology reports to determine a cause of death for two bodies found near the CVS on Southern Artery Thursday.
Quincy Police Lt. Daniel Guarente said a third person who was with the pair called the police to report the bodies.
"He said they were all together in the morning, then he left them for a little bit and came back and found them the way they were," he said.
Guarente said the victims were known to police through the Father Bill's homeless shelter on Broad Street. The Quincy Police detective unit and State Police will work to try to notify next of kin. As of Thursday evening, no family had been informed.
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Guarente said there have been several overdoses in the city over the last few days, but a toxicology report will be needed to confirm if that is what happened here. The deaths are not considered to be suspicious.
Opioid overdose death in Massachusetts reached a new high last year, according to the latest data released by the state Department of Public Health. The agency tracked an overdose death rate of 32.6 per 100,000 residents in 2021, up from 29.9 in 2020 and 28.8 in 2019.
June: Opioid overdose deaths reached new high in Mass. last year
Last year's death rate, the department said in its opioid report, is 6.2% higher than the past peak of 30.7 per 100,000 residents in 2016, when Gov. Charlie Baker signed a law intended to slow what then House Speaker Robert DeLeo at the time called a "public health crisis that is draining vitality from our hometowns, extinguishing lives and stealing souls."
Preliminary 2022 data – which includes both confirmed opioid overdose deaths and those estimated through a modeling process – offer some "slightly encouraging" news, Public Health Commissioner Margret Cooke said.
The estimated 551 deaths for the first three months of the year is 4% lower than 575 logged in the same period in 2021, she said, while acknowledging the early figures are likely to change as more complete information becomes available.
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This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: Two bodies found on Quincy's Southern Artery
