BBC News
By Christine Jeavans
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Healthcare in the UK has vastly improved since Victorian times, yet the geography of coronavirus deaths closely follows the pattern of poor health in the 19th Century.
A succession of studies has found a link between Covid-19 and poverty, with the latest describing a jaw-dropping fall in life expectancy in Greater Manchester due to the pandemic.
That pattern of deeply entrenched deprivation and ill-health stretches back at least 170 years, according to the chief medical officer for England. If you had a map of Covid s biggest effects now and a map of child deaths in 1850, they look remarkably similar, Prof Chris Whitty told an NHS conference in June.