Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, the disparities in life expectancy within the UK were not explained by the differential impact of infectious diseases, as they killed far too few people to make a mark. Rather, inequalities in health outcomes were the result of disparities in premature deaths from non-communicable diseases, most notably cardiovascular disease, cancers and diabetes. While such illnesses obviously aren’t transmitted from one person to another by pathogens, their distribution is not random. Just as the urban working classes in Victorian slums were more likely to be affected by
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