Essential workers in Toronto carry an unbalanced burden of COVID-19

Toronto, the largest city in Canada, has reported 94,943 cases of COVID-19-related deaths and 2,614 to date through this pandemic. Toronto has a population of over 2.7 million people, with 51.5% of them identified as an obvious minority. Shelter orders and unnecessary business closures are the main non-pharmaceutical interactions used as part of Toronto’s COVID-19 response.

However, many essential businesses and services have remained open to support society. According to Public Safety Canada, “critical workers” include workers in 1 of 10 emergency infrastructure departments, including health, transportation, food, and manufacturing. As estimated, approximately 40% of Canada’s working population is employed in jobs that cannot be accessed remotely. A significant proportion of these workers are from lower income households. This suggests that shelter orders may not be in place enough to protect essential workers from COVID-19 and related mortality.

Comparing per-capita rates of COVID-19 cases and deaths across Toronto neighborhoods by proportion of essential workers

Recently, a team of researchers from Toronto, Canada, compared per-capita rates of COVID-19 cases and associated deaths across Toronto neighborhoods by proportion of people working in essential frontline services. The review is published on the preprint server, medRxiv*.

The team used Information Management (CCM) data + person level data on laboratory confirmed cases of COVID-19 (N = 74,477) and associated deaths (N = 2319), and data from the 2016 Canada Census for level parameters neighborhood. The study population included reported community cases and deaths in Toronto (excluding long-term care residents) from January 23, 2020, to January 24, 2021. 3702 distribution areas were affected. city ​​distributed in strings and ranked according to the proportion of the population in each. distribution range working in essential services such as health, transportation, crafts, manufacturing, equipment, utilities, services, sales, and agriculture.

Neighbors with the highest proportion of essential workers were 2.5-fold higher per capita of COVID-19 deaths

The analysis showed that cumulative per-capita levels of COVID-19 cases and triple and 2.5-fold mortality were higher, respectively, in neighborhoods with the highest population of essential workers vs. those with the minimum density of required staff. The findings suggested that the critical staff serving the essential needs of society throughout the pandemic should be treated unfairly at the expense of COVID-19 transmission and death.

Many of these are lower-income jobs often held by contract workers and do not have clear employment rights or traditional benefits, including paid sick leave. The poor financial position of these individuals limits their bargaining power to require safe working conditions and appropriate personal protective equipment from employers. This marks a gap in prevention with the normal shelter rules.

Findings highlight the need for active intervention strategies to maximize the fairness and effectiveness of COVID-19 responses

This study demonstrates that the risks and consequences of COVID-19 being borne by neighborhood residents with larger proportions of essential workers have been disproportionate in the context of shelter orders. These results are consistent with earlier studies that showed that these occupations are not capable of remote work, so these individuals may have stable levels of attachment despite the preventive measures.

“Public and occupational health strategies could include primordial prevention aimed at keeping SARS-CoV-2 virus out of the workplace including through leave allows people to stay at home if they have known signs or manifestations. “

According to the authors, public and occupational health strategies could aim to keep SARS-CoV-2 out of the workplace, offering paid sick leave to work with symptoms or help those who are exposed to separate themselves safely at home. Overall, the results highlight the need for active intervention strategies as well as restraint measures currently in use to increase the fairness and effectiveness of the city’s COVID-19 responses.

“Moving forward requires policies and programs that actively protect employees in positions that remain active in the context of locksmiths.”

* Important message

medRxiv publish preliminary scientific reports that are not peer-reviewed and, therefore, should not be seen as final, guiding health-related clinical practice / behavior, or be treated as information established.