Shocking figures come from England: compared to 2019, the number of alcohol-related deaths in 2020 shot up by an astronomical 20 percent, reports the English “Guardian.”
All this despite the fact that bars and restaurants were closed for a long time – alcohol consumption had apparently shifted to the home. Alcohol sales in supermarkets rose by a whopping 25 percent, that’s 686 million more liters of alcohol that were bought and drunk.
There was a 15 percent increase in the number of deaths from alcohol poisoning, and 21 percent more died from alcohol-related liver failure. By comparison, between 2018 and 2019, deaths from these liver diseases increased by just three percent. Most affected were people who had at least critical alcohol consumption even before the Corona crisis and lockdowns and drank significantly too much, the newspaper writes.