Omicron is likely to hit deprived areas the hardest – here's why

By Colin Angus, Senior Research Fellow in the Sheffield Alcohol Research Group, University of Sheffield

A recurring theme of the pandemic has been how COVID’s impacts have not fallen equally across the UK population. The health and financial burden of the disease has been felt disproportionately by people living in deprived areas.

An example of the starkness of this disparity is the fact that, once you account for age differences between the groups, the most deprived areas in England recorded a COVID mortality rate that was two and a half times higher than the least deprived areas in the first year of the pandemic.

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