For the hundreds of thousands of Americans who have to visit clinics for daily doses of opioid addiction medication, social distancing is nearly impossible. But on Tuesday, the federal government eased some of its long-held restrictions in response to the coronavirus.
That’s good news, because continual access to two primary treatment medications, buprenorphine and methadone, is key: If patients miss a dose, they could go into withdrawal and turn to street drugs, risking overdose.