The damage of Covid lockdowns is only now becoming apparent

There are still those, like Matt Hancock, who think that lockdowns were an unalloyed good – who, indeed, believe that in a future pandemic we must lock down harder and faster. But for the rest of us, the appalling toll of Covid lockdowns continues to become apparent. 

The Office of National Statistics (ONS) reveals today that the number of people who are economically inactive due to long-term sickness has grown by 400,000 to 2.5 million since 2019. More than half of these people – 1,350,000 – report depression and anxiety as either the primary or secondary cause of their absence from the workplace. 

The pandemic has left us with virtually zero economic growth, much of which is blamed on high inflation and rising interest rates. But an important underlying cause too often goes without comment: a sharp rise in economic inactivity. 

We cannot grow richer as a country if ever more people are unproductive. Yet the figures for economic inactivity tend to get smothered by the more frequently-reported unemployment statistics.