The impact of COVID-19

A Sky News data blog, published just before Christmas, compared deprivation statistics with COVID-19 economic impact figures. Based on data from Nottingham University's TrackTheEconomy project, the findings suggest many of the places hit hardest by the pandemic are not among the most economically deprived.

The scatter chart below, taken from Sky’s blog, looks at this, picking out the places which have received Government funding.

This very much tallies with our Building Back Resilient report in November. As part of our analysis, we looked at a) places with a short-term COVID impact and at b) those with low economic resilience in a long-term sense. We identified big differences between the places in the former group and those in the latter group – our hypothesis being that places facing both were at most risk.

All of this feeds directly into questions about community resilience, which tends to be harder to cultivate in areas where resources are scarce. Serious thought is needed, when it comes to understanding the post-pandemic economy - and to analysing the intersections between the labels and definitions at play.