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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Robert Booth Social affairs correspondent

Covid has not affected people’s happiness around world, study reveals

People gather in Helsinki for the Vappu public holiday in April last year
People gather in Helsinki for the Vappu public holiday in April last year. Finland again came top of the happiness league table. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

It claimed 6.7 million lives, locked down entire countries and triggered a global economic slump, but Covid-19 has not affected humankind’s happiness, an international study has found.

Interviews with more than 100,000 people across 137 countries found significantly higher levels of benevolence in all global regions than before the pandemic. And when asked to evaluate their lives on a scale of one to 10, people on average gave scores just as high in the 2020-22 Covid years as in 2017-19.

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