Overdose Watch

Live: https://kat-titter.github.io/overdose-watch/

Are overdose deaths going down where we live and dance? This page puts official death counts for the United States, California, Nevada, San Francisco, Alameda County and Washoe County next to every reported overdose death and cluster of deaths we can find, with the drug each one names in its own colour (fentanyls, orphines, nitazenes, benzos, animal sedatives). Every report links its primary source: the agency that counted the deaths.

Harm-reduction information, not medical advice. If someone won't wake up or isn't breathing normally, call 911 and give Narcan.

Data

• data/trend.json: drug overdose deaths in the 12 months ending each month.
  • CDC NCHS VSRR provisional counts, states and US, monthly. Uses predicted values, which adjust for reporting delay.
  • CDC NCHS provisional county-level counts, quarterly.
  • San Francisco OCME preliminary monthly counts, summed over 12 months.
• data/incidents.json: one record per report of deaths, with its date, place, region, approximate position, kind (a death, a cluster or a data release), substances (the first sets the map colour; all for all-drug totals), exact molecules as reported, the death count the source states, a short summary, and the source link. Field rules live in tools/schema.py.

Updating

Every Monday a scheduled job (Claude) refreshes the official counts and looks for new reports of deaths. It cites trusted primary sources only (medical examiners and coroners, health departments, the CDC, the White House drug policy office); news coverage can point to a report but is never the citation. Reports added in the past week get a yellow ring on the map. The job runs:

python3 tools/update_trend.py          # refresh official counts (standard library only)
python3 tools/add_incidents.py new.json # validate and merge new reports; skips ones already tracked
python3 tools/validate.py              # check everything before committing

Corrections are welcome: open an issue with the report and a source.

Made by Kat Titterton, San Francisco, as part of a harm-reduction project for Black Rock City and Bay Area dance floors.