The US drug epidemic surged while Americans were locked up, fueled by the coronavirus pandemic and a spike in fentanyl usage.

According to preliminary data released Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 100,000 individuals died in the United States from drug overdoses between May 2020 and April 2021.

That's a terrible new record for drug overdose fatalities, a near-30% increase from the same time last year and a near-doubling in the last five years.

The drug epidemic grew concurrently with the Covid-19 pandemic, which killed around 509,000 lives over the same era.

The bulk of those drug overdose deaths were caused by synthetic opioids such as fentanyl, a painkiller 50-100 times more powerful than morphine. It has been reported that more than 64,000 have been dead due to fentanyl overdose.

In a crisis of this magnitude, those already taking drugs may take higher amounts and those in recovery may relapse. It's a phenomenon we've seen and perhaps could have predicted," Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, told CNN.

The US government has seized enough fentanyl this year to give every American a lethal dose, enough to kill more than 333 million people, said Drug Enforcement Administration Administrator Anne Milgram at a White House press briefing on Wednesday, calling the overdose epidemic in the US a "national crisis" that "knows no geographical boundaries, and it is getting worse."

According to a US Drug Enforcement Administration warning issued in September, illegal substances are frequently disguised as prescription medications and marketed online and through social media.

During the same month, the DEA reported over 800 arrests and the seizure of over 1.8 million pills as part of a two-month sweep.

The agency stated that fentanyl has been seized in every state, and in September it issued an urgent warning about phony prescription tablets laced with the substance.

Just 2 milligrams may be lethal, and they're frequently mixed up with fake Oxycontin, Percocet, or other medications.