Retail staff most likely workers to get Covid in second and third waves

Retail staff, cashiers and checkout operators were the most likely occupations to contract Covid-19 during the second and third wave of the pandemic, according to a new analysis by the Central Statistics Office.

Retail staff, cashiers and checkout operators were the most likely occupations to contract Covid-19 during the second and third wave of the pandemic, according to a new analysis by the Central Statistics Office (CSO).

In the first wave, meanwhile, it was nurses and midwives who were most at risk of catching the virus.

On Friday, the CSO published an analysis – using 2016 census data – of the three waves of Covid-19 from March 2020 until May 2021.

Sales and retail assistants, cashiers and checkout operators were the personnel most likely to contract COVID-19 in waves two and threehttps://t.co/Y0Gsunq09q #CSOIreland #Ireland #COVIDIreland #Health #SocialImpact pic.twitter.com/v8o8Qn4lHa

— Central Statistics Office Ireland (@CSOIreland) October 1, 2021

It found employees in the health and social work sector were hardest hit in the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic, making up 60% of cases amongst those employed in April 2020.

However, as society reopened after the first lockdown in summer 2020, the proportion of cases among those employed in the wholesale and retail trade sector increased from 5% in July 2020 to 17% in August 2020 and have remained consistently at this level since.

In all waves, non-manual workers (22%-23%) were the socio-economic group with the highest proportion of Covid-19 cases.

Steven Conroy, a statistician with the CSO, said the age profile of cases also differed between waves.

“We can see that the profile of cases changed from the first wave, where cases were concentrated more in older age groups and in Dublin, to the second and third waves, where younger age groups were more likely to be infected and the cases were spread around the rest of the country,” he added.

People with Covid-19 more likely to be female

People with Covid-19 are more likely to be female, with the largest difference in wave one when 54% of cases were female, the analysis found.

The proportion of cases which were people aged 0-14 and 15-24 increased dramatically between waves one and two and then dropped slightly in wave three.

The opposite pattern can be seen for people aged 65 and over, who made up 26% of cases in wave one but just 9% in wave two and 11% in wave three.

Mr Conroy said the extent to which affluent or disadvantaged areas were affected by the virus also varied between waves.

“Rates [of infection] were higher in the most affluent areas in wave one, with a rate of 655 per 100,000 population in the most affluent quintile compared with 499 in the most deprived,” Mr Conroy said.

“This pattern reversed in wave two, with a rate of 781 in the most affluent quintile compared with 1,055 in the most deprived."

He added: "By wave three, the rates were similar in the most affluent quintile (3,907) and the most deprived (3,874).” 

In wave three, 89% of cases were Irish nationals, 86% were white Irish and 85% were born in Ireland.

Overcrowded homes, where there is more than one person per room, accounted for 8% of households with a confirmed case in wave three compared to 19% in wave one.

The average number of people per household affected by Covid-19 increased across the waves, rising from 3.7 in wave one to 4.6 in wave three.

About 67% of all confirmed cases during the analysed timeframe were in family units with at least one child, the CSO found.

The percentage of cases in single people rose between the first and third wave, from 44% to 47%, while other marital statuses remained consistent.

There was a drop in cases among married or cohabiting couples with children from 54% in wave one to 49% in wave three, while cases among married or cohabiting couples without children rose from 13% to 25% during the same time period. 

With regard to the health of Covid patients, 86% of matched cases in wave one said they were in good or very good general health in Census 2016 compared with 91% in wave three.

Some 16% of people confirmed with Covid-19 reported having a disability.

One in five, or 21%, of those with a disability with Covid-19 lived in a communal setting in the first wave compared to just 6% and 8% in wave two and three.