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A decade of public spending cuts meant that the north of England was hit harder by the coronavirus pandemic than the rest of England, scientists have said.
A report by the Northern Health Science Alliance, made up of academics from several leading universities, says that the economic cost to the region of excess Covid-19 mortality was at least £ 6.89 billion.
It found that 57.7 more people per 100,000 died in the north of England than the rest of the country between March and July.
Clare Bambra, Professor of Public Health at Newcastle University, said: “Our report highlights that we are not all in the pandemic together, with the northern regions being the worst hit. Health and wealth in the northern power lagged behind the rest of the country even before the Covid pandemic, and over the past year our significant regional inequalities have been exacerbated. “
Large swaths of the north lived under local restrictions for weeks when England’s second national blockade was imposed on November 5.
North West England and Yorkshire and the Humber still have the highest infection rates in the country, according to the most recent data from the Office for National Statistics. An estimated 2.24% of people in the Northwest had Covid-19 at the end of October, the equivalent of 158,669 people, compared to 0.82% in London.
The report was led by scientists from the University of Newcastle, the University of Manchester, the University of York and the University of Liverpool.
It says a decade of cuts in public spending under the Conservative government’s austerity program left parts of northern England more vulnerable to a public health disaster like Covid-19. The mental health impact of the pandemic in the region is estimated to cost around £ 5bn a year.
Child health, a key predictor of health and economic productivity throughout life, was “poor and deteriorating” in the region before the pandemic, he says, and since March “adverse trends in poverty, education, employment and mental health of children and youth have exacerbated ”.
Hannah Davies from the alliance said: “Health inequalities between the North and the rest of England have been growing for over a decade. This report demonstrates the impact it has had on productivity in the region and how it has led Covid-19 to take devastating control in the north. “
The report offers 12 recommendations on how to “level up” the country, including renewing efforts to address child poverty and launching a £ 1 billion fund to address health inequalities in the region.
He also calls on the government to prioritize disadvantaged communities in the north with the launch of any Covid-19 vaccine, which could start next month, and hand over more control of testing and tracking to local leaders.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak is said to have told Conservative MPs in the region this week that the government was ready to inject new infrastructure funds into the north to aid its recovery.
Sunak, the MP for North Yorkshire’s Richmond constituency, is said to have supported a special package of financial support for northern businesses when he addressed members of the Northern Research Group, a new group of 54 Conservative MPs, on Monday for the night. .
Henri Murison, Director of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, which is chaired by former Chancellor George Osborne, said: “We cannot ignore the evidence that Covid-19 has had a grossly disproportionate effect, so it is essential that we prioritize the clinically vulnerable and disadvantaged communities when it comes to launching the vaccine. “
