The South Wales valleys are no stranger to hardship. The lifeblood of these isolated communities - their mining and manufacturing industries - has been squeezed dry by economic decline.
Dark spoil tips glower over the towns, a reminder of faded glories long since erased by a decade of Tory austerity. Now Rhondda Cynon Taf - the Welsh valleys county which is home to almost a quarter of a million people - finds itself at the centre of the global pandemic storm.
Its Coronavirus death rate of 283 per 100,000 people is twice the national average - making it the most Covid-deadly place in Britain.
Labour MP for Rhondda Chris Bryant believes the county’s heartbreaking poverty and years of neglect are a root cause of the soaring death toll. Got