The persistent higher rate of alcohol deaths in England since the pandemic in 2020 is an “acute crisis” requiring urgent action from government, according to a new study led by researchers at UCL and the University of Sheffield. For the study, published in Lancet Public Health , researchers analysed Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures of deaths caused solely by alcohol in England. They found that death rates were stable between 2009 and 2019, but increased by a fifth in 2020, rising by