A record number of people have been visiting Citizen Advice’s website looking for information on coronavirus, the charity has said.
Last week was the “busiest week in history”, with more than 2.2 million views. This was 50% more than the same time last year.
While at the beginning of the month most popular topics were travel advice and cancellations, the trend changed over the last week.
At the beginning of the week between 15 and 21 March, most viewed pages were a general coronavirus “what it means to you” page and sick pay pages. Towards mid-week, things changed and traffic on advice pages about redundancy, Universal Credit and benefits started growing.
The charity also said that “in the middle of last week, more people started looking for advice on what to do if you can't afford to top up your prepayment meter, showing people are already worried about spiralling into debt”.
Dame Gillian Guy, chief executive of Citizens Advice, said: “We are living in an extraordinary time and it’s important people know they’re not alone. We’re here to help in this time of national crisis.
“At Citizens Advice we are constantly using our data and insights to adapt our work to address the challenges people face and this won’t change.
“This web data helps make clear the problems people are coming to us about, and what’s still needed to ensure no one is pushed into hardship due to this pandemic."
Citizens Advice also said that most of its local centres are not offering face-to-face advice anymore, but can be contacted via phone or email.
