Covid-19 death rates twice as high in England's most deprived areas

[Judi Lynn]

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HEALTH 11 June 2020
By Conrad Quilty-Harper and Layal Liverpool



Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

Latest coronavirus news as of 5 pm on 12 June
Covid-19 death rates twice as high in England’s most deprived areas

The most deprived areas in England and Wales have been hit twice as hard by the coronavirus outbreak compared to the wealthiest areas, data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) suggests. After adjusting for differences in age, there were 128 deaths involving covid-19 per 100,000 people in the most deprived areas of England in March, April and May, compared to 60 deaths per 100,000 in the nation’s least deprived areas. In Wales, during the same time period, the death rate in the most deprived areas was 110 per 100,000 people compared to 58 per 100,000 people in the least deprived parts of the nation.

The estimated number of people who had coronavirus in England is continuing to fall, according to provisional results from a random swab testing survey by the ONS. The survey estimates that there were 33,000 infections outside of hospitals and care homes in England between 25 May and 7 June, down from 53,000 the previous week.

Other coronavirus news

Three major airlines, British Airways, Ryanair and easyJet, have launched a legal challenge against the UK government’s coronavirus quarantine rules, which they claim will devastate tourism and the economy. The new rules, which came into effect on 8 June, require passengers arriving in the UK to self-isolate for 14 days.

Hospital morgues in India have reached capacity, with some bodies now being kept on thick ice slabs as summer temperatures reach 40 degrees Celsius. There have been more than 8400 deaths from covid-19 recorded in India so far. To date, over 290,000 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in the country. India has now overtaken the UK to become the nation with the fourth-highest number of confirmed cases worldwide, after the US, Brazil and Russia.

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Read more: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2237475-covid-19-death-rates-twice-as-high-in-englands-most-deprived-areas/#ixzz6PQxLWEpK

[Warpy]

1. Poverty kills, what a shocker.

One county here in NM has a death rate of 7.4%. It's not the poorest county (although it's a very poor state) but it does have the worst air quality in the state and some of the worst in the country when the wind is wrong.

I suspect the same thing is at work in the UK, the poorest areas also have the worst air quality.