coronavirus

Caring and leisure services have statistically significantly higher rate of coronavirus death, according to latest ONS figures

Barbour EHS

Building on previous releases that looked at rates of death involving coronavirus by occupation, this bulletin from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) aims to understand the impact of lockdown on these rates.

The release covers before and during lockdown, England and Wales: deaths registered between 9 March and 30 June 2020.

The main points from this latest release (22 September) are as follows:

• Between 9 March and 30 June 2020, prior to the widespread easing of lockdown restrictions, 5,330 deaths involving COVID-19 in the working age population (those aged 20 to 64 years) of England and Wales were registered;
• 0% of the total number (3,839 deaths) were likely to be the result of an infection acquired before lockdown
• For both sexes, age-standardised rates of death involving COVID-19 by occupation were statistically significantly lower during lockdown than before lockdown;
• Across the entire time period, some groups of occupations continued to have high rates of death involving COVID-19, when compared with rates among those of the same age and sex in the population;
• Among men, four of the nine major occupation groups (elementary; caring, leisure and personal services; process, plant and machine operatives; and skilled trades) had statistically significantly higher rates of death involving COVID-19 both before and during lockdown, when compared with rates among those of same age and sex in the population
• Caring, leisure and other services was the only major occupation group to have a statistically significantly higher rate of death involving COVID-19 among women before and during lockdown, when compared with rates among those of the same age and sex in the population
• Among health and social care professionals, rates of death involving COVID-19 in men were around three times higher when the virus was more likely acquired before lockdown than during lockdown; in women, rates were around two times higher
• Reasons for these findings are complex, but factors like the level of exposure to others before and during lockdown, the ability to work from home, whether an occupation was furloughed, and where someone lives could all be playing a role, says the ONS.

The release can be found here.

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