Thank you for contacting me about the impact of the Coronavirus outbreak on people from a range of backgrounds.
The Health Secretary commissioned Public Health England (PHE) to complete an urgent review of the disparities in risk and outcomes of the Covid-19 pandemic and PHE has published its findings.
Age and sex
PHE’s report found that Covid-19 diagnosis rates increased with age for both males and females. Working age males diagnosed with Covid-19 were twice as likely to die as females. Among people with a positive test, when compared with those under 40, those who were 80 or older were seventy times more likely to die. These are the largest disparities found in this analysis and are consistent with what has been previously reported in the UK. These disparities exist after taking ethnicity, deprivation and region into account, but they do not account for the effect of comorbidities or occupation, which may explain some of the differences.
BAME
The report confirms that being black or from a minority ethnic background is a major risk factor, both in contracting the disease and, sadly, dying from it. There is much more work to be done to understand the key drivers of these disparities, the relationships between the different risk factors and what must be done to close the gap. It is important that we build on this initial work.
Professor Kevin Fenton was asked to lead the review by PHE and has been engaging with a significant number of individuals and organisations within the BAME community over the past couple of months to hear their views. This has now been published in a second report by PHE which provides additional information and insights on the relationship between COVID-19 and BAME communities in England. I am encouraged that this report makes a series of recommendations which build on the views shared with Professor Fenton. I understand the Equalities Minister will build on this by taking forward this work, working with the Race Disparity unit and across government where necessary.
These reports are an important step, but this work is still ongoing. I will continue to follow this issue extremely closely and to press ministerial colleagues to tackle health inequalities.
It has been particularly sad to learn of the deaths of NHS staff on the frontline of the battle with coronavirus, and early evidence indicates that there is a higher death rate among staff from BAME backgrounds This is extremely worrying, and I know that the Government and NHS are already looking at what can be done to better protect and support staff at this time. I know that the NHS Director for Workforce, Race and Equality will take these reports extremely seriously.
Deprivation
PHE’s report also found that people who live in deprived areas have had higher diagnosis rates and death rates than those living in less deprived areas. The mortality rates from Covid-19 in the most deprived areas were more than double the least deprived areas, for both males and females. I understand that high diagnosis rates may be due to geographic proximity to infections or a high proportion of workers in occupations that are more likely to be exposed. Poor outcomes from Covid-19 infection in deprived areas remain after adjusting for age, sex, region and ethnicity, but the role of comorbidities requires further investigation.
People with Disabilities
As your MP, I am, along with my colleagues in Government, absolutely committed to supporting disabled people, people with learning disabilities and those with long-term conditions through every stage of the pandemic. There is work underway to ensure that disabled people are able to get the support they need. The Department for Health and Social Care has announced £22 million of funding will be awarded to learning disabilities and autism charities, alongside others, to help support their work during the current COVID-19 outbreak. Colleagues are also urgently working to better understand the effect of Covid-19 on disabled people’s health outcomes by identifying the current data available, any gaps and how these could be addressed, including exploring research opportunities.
Thank you for taking the time to contact me.
Craig Whittaker MP
June 2020