Monday 8 August 2022 11:46 PM Covid-19 at-home boozing is here to stay, and it will cause a $5.4bn medical ... trends now
The habit of at-home boozing Americans picked up during the Covid-19 pandemic is here to stay — and it will lead to hundreds of thousands more hospital visits and a multi-billion dollar medical bill, new research reveals.
One study this month found that at-home drinking ‘spiked’ in 2020 and held strong in 2021. Many Americans will be ‘keeping the party at home’ even as Covid-19 restrictions fade and bars and eateries get busier, it said.
Another study found that widespread boozing at home will take a huge toll. Over five years, this will mean 295,000 extra hospital visits caused by alcohol and $5.4 billion more in healthcare costs.
Carolina Barbosa, a health economist with RTI, a North Carolina-based research institute, warned that increased rates of boozing during the pandemic will likely continue and carry a ‘significant health and economic burden’ in the U.S.
Barbosa’s team studied the drinking habits of adults aged over 21 from the early stage of the pandemic, between February and November 2020, when alcohol consumption rates shot up by about 37 percent.
Higher rates of boozing were more marked among women, the over 50s and minorities.
Alcohol sales grew by 2.9 percent in 2020, the first year of the pandemic – the biggest rise in more than five decades
Researchers next calculated the additional toll from five years of higher rates of boozing — and produced the worrying estimates of increased hospitalizations and medical costs.
Hospital visits for cirrhosis of the liver alone would add up to an extra $3.0 billion, said the study.
The other study, from IRI, a data analysis firm, found that ‘many consumers are opting to celebrate and socialize at home’ even as the pandemic abates, lockdowns are lifted, and more people head to bars and restaurants for fun.
Many people have continued
