Minister of Mental Health and Addictions Sheila Malcolmson said today the deaths were an “insidious impact of the pandemic,” wiping out progress made in 2019. But advocates and experts say the province’s small, slow steps to address the crisis, even after the potential impacts of the pandemic on overdose deaths became clear, are a slap in the face to the families and friends of the 6,733 people who have died since 2016. “We have had years to get ahead of this,” said peer advisor Guy Felicella of the BC Centre on Substance Use. “COVID showed how fragile what we had in place already really was.”