{"id":13454,"date":"2020-05-01T14:30:42","date_gmt":"2020-05-01T18:30:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/?p=13454"},"modified":"2020-05-19T11:24:15","modified_gmt":"2020-05-19T15:24:15","slug":"covid-19-deaths-twice-as-high-in-poorest-areas-in-england-and-wales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/covid-19-deaths-twice-as-high-in-poorest-areas-in-england-and-wales\/","title":{"rendered":"Covid-19 deaths twice as high in poorest areas in England and Wales"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The government must prioritise health funding for the most deprived regions in the aftermath of the coronavirus crisis, politicians and public health experts have demanded, after new data analysis revealed the devastating scale of the death toll in the poorest parts of England and Wales.<\/p>\n

In findings one expert said highlighted the fact that Covid-19 \u201cis not a leveller\u201d as politicians have repeatedly claimed, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said that those living in the poorest parts of England and Wales were dying at twice the rate of those in the richest areas.<\/p>\n

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With 55.1 deaths per 100,000 people in the most deprived places compared with 25.3 in the least deprived, the King\u2019s Fund health thinktank demanded the government focus new resources to reverse health inequalities as the crisis eases.<\/p>\n

The findings came as another 739 people died across the UK, bringing the total to 27,510. They echo last week\u2019s report from the Guardian that members of ethnic minority groups were particularly badly affected by the virus, with those from BAME backgrounds overrepresented in the toll by 27%.<\/p>\n

Responding to the analysis at the government\u2019s briefing on Friday, the health secretary, Matt Hancock, acknowledged the issue, saying: \u201cThis is something we are worried about and looking at.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added, however, that the findings should be seen in the context of disproportionate deaths among men, older people, minorities and other subgroups. \u201cWe\u2019re looking at it in the context of all of the different ways that this disease seems to have a different impact,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Critics said impact of austerity in the poorest communities was behind the new data. Steve Rotheram, the Labour mayor for the Liverpool city region argued that deprivation must be a factor in how spending is allocated to deal with costs incurred during the crisis.. Liverpool has one of the highest Covid-19 death rates outside London, with 303 deaths, amounting to 81.8 deaths per 100,000 people, and is the local authority to have suffered the biggest cuts<\/a> to its budget since 2010.<\/p>\n

The city region\u2019s councils are already warning of a \u00a3137m funding gap between the money they have spent dealing with coronavirus and the funds pledged to them by government, said Rotherham. He called for a change in the methodology of the Treasury\u2019s \u201cgreen book\u201d, which guides government spending, in order to prioritise the most deprived areas \u2013 rather than the per capita approach it currently takes.<\/p>\n

\u201cDeprivation should be factored into Treasury-book methodology across the board but specifically in relation to this. Local authorities were promised \u2018whatever it takes\u2019. The first allocation of fund was given on a needs basis but the second wasn\u2019t,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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Maggi Morris, a health consultant and former head of public health in Central Lancashire, said the economic policies of Conservative-led governments of the last decade had done nothing to actually help reduce health inequalities. \u201cIn fact, they have exacerbated them,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The government must reverse benefit changes, she said, particularly cuts to housing allowance and the bedroom tax, which had forced more people to live in cramped accommodation where disease spreads more easily.<\/p>\n

The ONS data exposed the lie that Coronavirus attacks all equally, she said. \u201cIt is not a leveller. More people who are at social economic disadvantage will not only get ill but get iller and will die in numbers greater than the privileged. This disease knows where to find the weakest links.\u201d<\/p>\n

Along with the King\u2019s Fund, she called for a national strategy to tackle health inequality. \u201cThere has been no national strategy because it doesn\u2019t want to acknowledge that disparities exist,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

London\u2019s poorest boroughs have the highest Covid-19 death rates in led by England and Wales, led by Newham, with 144.3 deaths per 100,000 population, followed by Brent with 141.5 and 127.4 in Hackney. Other local authorities including Hertsmere, Salford, Watford, Luton, Sandwell and Slough also had rates above 65 deaths per 100,000 people.<\/p>\n

In Middlesbrough, where 89 people have died of Coronavirus \u2013 which amounts to 79 deaths per 100,000 \u2013 male life expectancy is just 75.3, compared with almost 84 in the wealthy London borough of Westminster.<\/p>\n

Andy McDonald, the local Labour MP, said: \u201cThe health profile of Middlesbrough is awful and we know what that\u2019s about. It\u2019s about poverty and inequality and you can\u2019t get away from that.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The ONS data is age-standardised, which means the age profile of people living in each area has been accounted for. But David Buck, the former deputy director for health inequalities at the department of health and now a policy advisor at the King\u2019s Fund, said he suspected further data analysis would show that younger people were dying from Covid-19 in the poorest areas.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know that the more deprived your situation the more likely you are to have co-morbidities such as diabetes. We know that those multiple, long term conditions are much more prevalent the poorer you are but also in a younger age group \u2026 I haven\u2019t looked at the data but that would be my bet,\u201d said Buck.<\/p>\n

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The World Health Organization is recommending that people take simple precautions to reduce exposure to and transmission of the coronavirus, for which there is no specific cure or vaccine.<\/p>\n

The UN agency\u00a0advises<\/a>\u00a0people to:<\/p>\n