Read: Covid death risk ‘almost four times higher’ for poorest in England
The chances of dying from Covid-19 were nearly four times higher for adults of working age in England’s poorest areas than for those in the wealthiest places, an inquiry into of the health impacts of the pandemic has found.
The nine-month inquiry by the Health Foundation charity said a decade of widening health inequalities and cuts to public services had “frayed the nation’s health” and contributed to the UK’s disproportionately high Covid death toll compared with similar countries.
It called for urgent action to reduce health differences and urged significant public investment in the NHS, jobs, housing, education, communities and social security. There must be no reboot of the austerity policies of the past decade as the UK prepared to move out of the pandemic, it warned.
“We may have to learn to live with Covid-19, but we don’t have to live with its unequal impact,” said Jo Bibby, the foundation’s director of health, adding: “We cannot afford to make the same mistake twice.”
The report echoes many of the findings of the public health expert Sir Michael Marmot’s report into Covid health inequalities in Greater Manchester, published last week, and reflects increasing concerns over the scale and focus of the government’s plans for the UK’s long-term recovery from the pandemic.
The chair of the inquiry, Dame Clare Moriarty, said: “We need to aim for a recovery that builds economic and social resilience, with ‘levelling up’ not limited to geographical areas of disadvantage but that addresses the needs of groups who have experienced the most damaging impacts of the pandemic.”