Cumbria's public health director has said it is "imperative" that action to reduce health inequalities across the county is examined "very seriously" in order to reduce the potential impact of a further pandemic in the future.

Colin Cox, Cumbria's public health director, said that nearly a year into the coronavirus pandemic, the data now available demonstrates it is "very clear" that Covid-19, "like most forms of death", is not an "equal opportunities killer".

Addressing Cumbria County Council's Health and Wellbeing Board at the end of last week, Mr Cox was reflecting on what was now apparent from the abundance of data available on the course of the Covid-19 pandemic, nearly a year on from the first cases in the county.

With it being nearly 12 months since coronavirus first arrived in Cumbria, Mr Cox said he felt it was "timely" to reflect on the course of the pandemic.

"It's very clear that Covid-19, like most forms of death, is not an equal opportunities killer," he said.

"It is something that affects people in more socio-economically deprived parts of the country at a much greater extent than in other areas."

This variance is "no surprise" to public health experts, Mr Cox said, adding that fighting to "tackle those health inequalities" has been a public health goal for "many years".

Nevertheless, there is a particular link between Covid-19 and deprivation. "In non-Covid-19 causes of death, the mortality rate in the most deprived decile is 1.9 times higher than in the least deprived decile," he said.

"Looking at Covid-19, it's 2.8 times higher in the most deprived decile, than in the least deprived decile."

This demonstrates that "Covid-19 exacerbates and identifies the health inequalities that exist across society as it stands", Mr Cox added.

While Mr Cox said there is a "wide range of reasons" contributing to this, he added it is "imperative" that the Cumbria Health and Wellbeing Board looks "very seriously" at what can be done to support "tackling those inequalities further".

Mr Cox said that doing this would help to ensure that "we are a more robust and resilient system and county, should we ever find ourselves having to deal with a pandemic again".

Mr Cox added that it was also important to investigate the available data to help inform the county's "response to the recovery" from Covid-19.

"There's a lot of data out there now, and I think it's important we spend a bit of time as we come out of this pandemic studying the patterns that we've seen in Cumbria, and identifying what that means," he said.

Tackling health inequalities is a key feature of Cumbria County Council's joint health and wellbeing strategy, valid from 2019 to 2029, and identifies a number of "priorities for immediate focus", including a reduction in the levels of poverty and income inequalities, improving air quality and improving educational attainment in the county.

Continuing his reflections on the Covid-19 data collected across the past 12 months, Mr Cox added that in terms of its overall rate of deaths, Cumbria has "done very slightly better than England", based on data for age-standardised Covid-19 mortality rates.

"However, there has been very substantial variance across the county in mortality rates from Covid-19."

"In particular, the rate in Barrow is approximately twice that in Allerdale and Eden," Mr Cox said.

Mr Cox noted that this reflected the varied rates of deprivation across Cumbria.

"The more deprived areas tend to suffer the worst from Covid-19," he said.