Since the start of last year, the coronavirus pandemic has hit every community in the UK, but not every community has suffered in the same way.
The Local Government Association (LGA) has drawn together data from a wide range of sources to show the most disadvantaged and excluded communities have been hit hardest.
Figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that people living in the most deprived communities in England and Wales are twice as likely to die if they contract COVID-19.
A House of Commons briefing paper published in March this year attributes the higher death rate to factors including pre-existing health issues often linked to poverty and many people in these areas doing jobs where they could not work from home.
The pandemic exacerbating existing problems in areas such as food poverty has also been cited as a contributing factor along with the unfairness of the benefits system, which was only partially ameliorated by the £20 uplift to Universal Credit.
The Mental health impact of coronavirus has been described as the ‘silent pandemic’, in late 2020 a factsheet published by the Centre for Mental Health described the challenges disadvantaged individuals and communities face.
Poverty, disability, and membership of a ethic or minority community are all determinants of potential mental heath issues during an individual’s lifetime. It is also these groups who find accessing support services most difficult.
These problems were all evident before the pandemic since its arrival they have become more acute due to the pressures of being in lockdown for long periods and anxiety caused by reduced incomes of the loss of employment.
Modelling carried out by the Centre for Mental Health and NHS England published in May suggests an extra 10 million people, 8.5 million adults and 1.5 million children, will need mental health support over the next three to five years.
Ethnic and minority communities across the UK have been severely impacted by the pandemic, with data published by Public Health England in July last year showing they were more likely to be exposed to and, if they contracted it, to die from the virus.
Deprivation has been shown to be a key driver for infection and higher mortality, with many ethnic communities living in densely populated areas and overcrowded housing, making self-isolation difficult. Pre-existing health inequalities and working in jobs that cannot be done remotely are also cited as contributing factors.
Age and gender are also identified by the LGA as contributing factors to increased risk of contracting and dying from COVID-19.
Older people are more likely to have pre-existing health conditions that make them susceptible to catching the virus and are more likely to suffer negative consequences from social isolation caused by being in lockdown.
The pandemic has exposed disparities in health outcomes linked to gender, while men are more likely to catch and die from the virus, women suffer more acutely from the psychological impact of lockdowns.
Women have also suffered disproportionately domestic violence during the pandemic, which is estimated to have risen by at least 25%, whilst accessing support services, already difficult pre-COVID, has become even harder.
Much of this data is well known, it is viewing it all together that has a truly shocking impact. What it demonstrates is both the extent of the suffering caused by the pandemic to individuals and communities that were struggling before it arrived and how that suffering is truly and devastatingly intersectional.
The message is all too clear, rebuilding after the health, economic and societal impact of the pandemic will be a task equivalent to rebuilding the shattered national infrastructure after the Second World War.
This is a task that will take a decade or more to complete and demand serious political and financial investment on the part of government.
The question is whether a government led by an unashamed populist who famously doesn’t do detail has the determination necessary to take the job on?