Gateshead’s poorest people have been hit the hardest by the coronavirus pandemic, the council’s health boss has said.
Behind the Masks: Gateshead’s Covid Stories brings together personal accounts of the pandemic from residents and the professionals who support them.
The report, from director of public health Alice Wiseman, focuses on how Covid-19 has disproportionately affected those from deprived communities – with their housing, type of employment and lifestyles all contributing to their risk of catching the virus, and how ill they’re likely to get when they do.
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She said: “This year has been hard for everyone but I want you to try and imagine what it will be like living in a small property with little or no outdoor space worried about heating your home, feeding your kids or providing the necessary IT so your children don’t fall behind at school.
“Then add to that the fear of bringing Covid home to your family; your mam who provides the necessary child care or risk losing your job, of course you may have more than one job to juggle.
“Imagine being furloughed on 80% of the national living wage, with no chance to top up your income with overtime.
“Imagine being told that your child must isolate as a close contact but that means you can’t go to work and therefore you can’t get paid, or worse still you might lose your job.
“Covid has exacerbated the inequalities that we already knew about and it has also shone an even brighter spot light on the differences in both the risk of ill health as well as the opportunities that individuals in our communities have to thrive.
“These are lessons from our teacher called Covid.”
At Thursday’s full council meeting Ms Wiseman said that overcrowding, lack of money and work that can only be done outside the home mean the less well off had it worse.
She continued: “Many of the factors that created and exacerbated the inequalities in Covid are not driven by physical ill health independently.
“The things that create the context where inequality rather than people thrive, poor housing, unemployment, low levels of education are many of the same things which prevented our residents from being able to protect their families and their communities from Covid.
“Evidence has exposed the pathways which link deprivation to higher Covid infection rates, cases, severity of illness and death.
“Exposure, as a result of inequalities in working conditions including a clear social gradient in the ability to work from home.
“Lower paid workers, particularly those in the health, care and service sector were much more likely to be key workers and therefore required to work during lockdown.
“Deprived neighbourhoods are more likely to contain houses of multiple occupation, lack outdoor space as well as experience high population densities which may increase transmission rates as well as make isolation more difficult.
“Vulnerability due to a higher burden of pre-existing health conditions that increase the severity and risk of mortality from Covid 19.
“And finally susceptibility due to an immune system which is weakened by long term to adverse living and environmental conditions.”
Ms Wiseman added: “The social determinants of health work to make people from deprived communities more vulnerable to infection from Covid-19 even when they have no underlying health conditions.”
