'Covid decade' threatens to hold back UK and exacerbate inequality

Report says there are widening inequalities in areas including health, local economies and poverty

A man walks along the National Covid Memorial Wall in London. A report has said mistakes, delays and failures in the UK's Covid-19 response cost lives. Getty Images

An almost empty Westminster Bridge stands backdropped by the early morning sun on March 24, 2020, the first day of Britain's first lockdown. AP Photo

A woman is told to go home by a police officer on Primrose Hill in London in April 2020. The government's guidance at the time was to only use parks for dog walking, one form of exercise a day alone or with members of the same household. AP Photo

An image of Britain's Queen Elizabeth II and quotes from her historic television broadcast commenting on the coronavirus pandemic are displayed on a big screen at Piccadilly Circus in London in April 2020. AP Photo

NHS staff applaud outside the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in London during the weekly "Clap for our Carers" in April 2020. The applause took place across Britain every Thursday at 8pm to show appreciation for healthcare workers, emergency services, and all those helping people with coronavirus and keeping the country functioning while most people stayed at home in the lockdown. AP Photo

A packed Brighton beach on Britain's hottest day of the year on June 24 2020. AP Photo

People take part in a 'We Do Not Consent' rally at Trafalgar Square to protest against coronavirus restrictions in September 2020. AP Photo

Year seven pupils in class during their first day at Kingsdale Foundation School in London in September 2020. Schools in England had started to reopen with special measures in place to deal with Coronavirus. AP Photo

Crowds of shoppers walk under the Christmas lights in Regent Street, in London iun December 2020. AP Photo

Critical Care staff prone a Covid-19 patient on the Christine Brown ward at King's College Hospital in London in January 2021. AP Photo

Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson gestures after receiving the first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine at St.Thomas' Hospital in London in March this year. AP Photo

Society will feel the effects of the coronavirus pandemic for a decade, academics warned on the anniversary of the UK's first lockdown.

They say there needs to be an urgent overhaul of British policies to tackle growing problems in health care, education and social development.

More than 200 academics and policy specialists helped to compile the British Academy's warning, and recommendations for avoiding the worst of their predictions, in a report called The Covid Decade: Understanding the Long-term Societal Impacts of Covid-19.

The report was published on Tuesday.

“There are multiple forms of inequality that create personal and societal obstacles to progress,” said lead author Dominic Abrams, professor of social psychology at the University of Kent.

“Finding ways to create greater inclusiveness, tackle underlying mechanisms of inequality and create the resourcefulness to share a better future will be our biggest challenge during this Covid decade.”

The report says there are widening geographic inequalities in areas including health, local economies and poverty.

Access to education could be lost and the effects could be worse in areas where there is already socio-economic inequality.

The report says low levels of trust in the national government and severe strain on local community infrastructure threaten to slow any return to normality.

“The Covid decade will also be profoundly shaped by policy decisions and this offers us many opportunities,” Prof Abrams said.

“Government will need to establish a longer-term vision to tackle the impacts of Covid-19.

"This will involve working in partnership with places and people to address structural problems systematically, not just in a piecemeal way.”

The report said tackling tension between local and national leaders will be key to any strategy to help vulnerable people.

Eliminating the divide by treating digital infrastructure as a critical, life-changing public service was among the recommendations.

The report said commercial, educational and social institutions should all act together.

"We are at the beginning of a Covid decade,” British Academy chief executive Hetan Shah said.

“It will require investing in civil society and our social infrastructure to strengthen our local communities, especially in our most deprived areas.

“Science has given us the vaccine to respond to the health crisis, but we will need social science and the humanities to meet the social, cultural and economic crises we face in the Covid decade.”