‘Every day I hear about a Covid-19 death’: life in the UK’s worst-affected area

Coronavirus has hit the London borough of Newham – one of the UK’s most deprived areas – harder than anywhere else

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Kamrul Islam doesn’t dare visit his local supermarket. Over the last few weeks, he said three of his closest friends fell ill with the coronavirus shortly after shopping there. One friend’s mother became seriously unwell after contracting the virus and died.

The 40-year-old former cab driver says a day doesn’t go by when he isn’t aware of a death or infection of someone he knows. While the coronavirus has spread widely across the UK, the pandemic has taken a huge toll on the area where Islam lives, the east London borough of Newham, which has recorded the worst mortality rate in England and Wales.

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