{"id":4681,"date":"2022-06-04T17:00:29","date_gmt":"2022-06-04T17:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/?p=4681"},"modified":"2022-06-04T17:00:29","modified_gmt":"2022-06-04T17:00:29","slug":"covid-19-was-deadly-to-working-class-americans-in-2020-researcher-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/?p=4681","title":{"rendered":"COVID-19 was deadly to working-class Americans in 2020, researcher says"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Authors: Sam Ogozalek<\/a> June 3, 2022 Tampa Bay Times<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Working-class Americans died of COVID-19 at five times the rate of those in higher socioeconomic positions during the first year of the pandemic, according to a study.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The staggering disparity was revealed in a study of roughly 69,000 U.S. coronavirus victims ages 25 to 64 who died in 2020. <\/strong>It was conducted by a group of researchers including University of South Florida epidemiologist Jason Salemi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The study\u2019s authors found that 68% of the deaths they studied were among people considered to be in a low socioeconomic position, defined as workers whose education stopped at high school. <\/strong>Only about 12% of deaths occurred among people in high socioeconomic positions, defined as those with at least a bachelor\u2019s degree.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The researchers <\/strong>said <\/strong>the majority of working-class adults in the U.S. were employed in blue collar, service or retail jobs and <\/strong>couldn\u2019t work remotely in the first year of the virus, before vaccines became widely available in 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur results support the hypothesis that hazardous conditions of work were a primary driver of joint socioeconomic, gender, and racial\/ethnic disparities in COVID-19 mortality,\u201d the researchers wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Working-class employees faced \u201celevated infection risks,\u201d according to a USF summary of the study, compared to higher-paid workers who were \u201cmore likely to have fewer exposure risks, options to work remotely, paid sick leave and better access to quality health care.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The report comes as Florida and several parts of the nation grapple with high levels of COVID-19 transmission driven by contagious omicron subvariants. The Tampa Bay region is considered to be at \u201chigh\u201d risk of infection, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention<\/a>, which recommends wearing masks in indoor public spaces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though the research <\/strong>is based on deaths that occurred in 2020 \u2014 before vaccines reduced COVID-19 mortality across the board \u2014 Salemi said <\/strong>he believes working-class people are still at higher risk of sickness and death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said the study\u2019s findings offer a warning about how the pathogen can deeply impact vulnerable communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Talk of \u201cgetting back to normal,\u201d he said, means \u201cvery different things\u201d to different people in the U.S.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSome people are still going to be in the line of fire,\u201d Salemi said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The question facing the country, he said, is what can be done to help working-class employees stay safe?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His solutions: Improve ventilation in buildings to reduce indoor transmission; wear high-quality masks indoors to reduce infections; and institute paid sick leave so the infected can stay home instead of spreading the virus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The study was published in April<\/a> in the peer-reviewed International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. The research team collected provisional COVID-19 death data from the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics. Deaths were included if COVID-19 was listed as an underlying or contributing cause of death. The center uses educational levels to measure socioeconomic status.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The study found that the age-adjusted COVID-19 death rate for working-class adults was 72.2 deaths per 100,000. For those in high socioeconomic positions, the rate was 14.6 deaths per 100,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The researchers discovered other disparities:<\/p>\n\n\n\n