The U.K. economy shrank the most in three centuries in 2020, according to fresh statistics that highlight the devastating economic damage wrought by the Covid-19 pandemic.
In its annual Blue Book revisions released Monday, the Office for National Statistics said the economy contracted by 11%, rather than the 9.3% it previously estimated.
That makes it the worst drop since the Great Frost of 1709, reclaiming an unwanted accolade that previous estimates had revised away.
The drop in the second quarter of 2020, at the height of the first and most intensive COVID-19 lockdown, now stands at 21%, from 19.4% previously.
The ONS said that the revisions were “mainly because we have richer data from our annual surveys and certain administrative data, so we are now able to measure costs incurred by businesses (intermediate consumption) directly and can adjust for prices (deflation) at a far more detail level.”
