The lockdown also had a severe impact on mental health and drug and alcohol addiction. The U.K. Office of National Statistics (ONS) reported that depression rates across all ages and genders went up by 50 percent during the lockdown. Meanwhile, research shows that 18 percent of British adults reported considering suicide in the first month of the lockdown.
The charity organization Action on Addiction said that around 40 percent of British patients recovering from drug or alcohol addiction are likely to suffer a relapse.
Stroke, heart attack and cancer patients were also at the receiving end of the lockdown's lethal blow. One study found that the number of deaths due to a heart attack and stroke increased by eight percent, and the number of people treated for stroke fell by 45 percent. "The sad irony is that heart attack services remained fully operational... during the peak of the pandemic," said cardiologist Chris Gale of the University of Leeds, who co-authored the study. Another paper found that the daily average count of organ transplants fell from 11.6 to 3.1. The number of people who died waiting for transplant surgery increased from 47 in the same period of time last year to 87 during the lockdown. Meanwhile, endoscopies for bowel cancer were just 12 percent of the pre-lockdown average. According to a study, delays in bowel cancer diagnosis will likely lead to between 650 and 2,250 excess deaths in the U.K. Another study showed that delayed treatment for breast, lung and esophageal cancer will likely cause an additional 2,000 deaths related to these diseases. Urgent referrals for early cancer diagnosis were also down by up to 89 percent from last year. This, in turn, is projected to lead to more than 6,200 extra deaths in the first year after the pandemic.Oncologist Patricia Price of Imperial College London said that these figures demonstrate the U.K. government’s failure to address treatment backlogs. She added that while the figures cover multiple health conditions, the effects of the lockdown were exceptionally dire on cancer patients. (Related: It's now looking like the lockdowns may have been a huge mistake.)
"This is the worst cancer crisis I have seen in my 30-year career," Price said. She added that restoring health services to pre-COVID-19 levels will not be enough to clear the backlogs.
"[We] need a super-boost to services," Price said. "Otherwise, thousands of patients will die at home without access to the Health Service and the care they need."
Accident and emergency visits also fell from more than 80,000 a week to just over 40,000 during the lockdown, according to the Health Foundation in the U.K.Jeremy Hunt, the chairman of the House of Commons health committee, called on the government to buttress health services and said that the mistakes of the first lockdown cannot be repeated. (Related: Europe gearing up for another lockdown as new COVID-19 infections soar.)
"The last lockdown was devastating for cancer sufferers and we now know led to thousands of avoidable deaths," Hunt said. "Whatever course of action ministers opt for now, it is simply unconscionable for the NHS to become a COVID-only service."
The analysis comes just as a second national lockdown was announced four months after the end of the first nationwide shutdown. The new restrictions came into effect on Nov. 5 and are set to last Dec. 2.
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