Domestic violence rose dramatically after COVID-19 lockdown began

The new research finds evidence that physical abuse has both increased and escalated — even as the numbers of victims coming forward has decreased.

Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston identified 62 adults who sought help for physical and nonphysical abuse by an intimate partner between March 11 and May 3. That was far fewer than the numbers who came forward for help and/or treatment during the same period in 2019 (104 people), 2018 (106) and 2017 (146).

But the proportion of men and women whose abuse was physical — rather than verbal or emotional — was 80% higher in 2020 than in all three earlier years put together. And the physical abuse was much more severe.