Why are the supermarket workers not getting sick?

[bulletjournalbilly]

So tell me this ...if supermarkets are a "danger zone" why aren't the supermarket workers all dying and getting sick with this "killer virus"?

[Divebar]

Let’s face it we don’t know the infection rate by occupation. We have data regarding death rate and occupation which shows you the occupations most at risk with (certain caveats.) It discusses retail but not specific types of retail so we can’t know for sure about supermarkets. My feeling ( based on my very non scientific experience) is that supermarkets employ more women than men in customer facing roles and women are less likely to die than men from Covid. They’re also large, contain many hard surfaces which would in theory be easy to clean ( unlike softer surfaces where the virus can be shaken off some time later ). Whether they are actually cleaning thoroughly I don’t know.

[Streamingbannersofdawn]

I work in childcare and we had a nasty virus go through our group in Dec/Jan. I was discussing this with colleagues the other day.

It went through staff, children and some parents like wildfire, temperature, nasty cough, some children had a rash. Lots of doctor visits where it was confirmed as "viral" but they weren't sure what. Children would come back and then suddenly throw a high temperature and be sent home again. I have 3 children needing inhalers who didn't before. The cough took ages to completely go with adults.

Totally anecdotal obviously and we know "children dont get it severely" but it has made me wonder...

[BlueBlueAndPink]

They are. My DH works in a supermarket and almost certainly brought it home to us.

[MintyMabel]

Some people matter more than others to the news.

This. Supermarket workers are the bottom of the pile when it comes to key workers. People seem to forget what it was like 10 weeks ago when they were worried they wouldn't have food.

"killer" virus

Why the quotes? Are you suggesting this virus isn't killing people in numbers we've never seen before?

[IncrediblySadToo]

@Whatsthis1515

'Diabetic Team' I'm T2, we just get treat like naughty children and told to follow the guidelines (heavy carb diet) and take meds.

I 'go my own way' I eat very low carb & keep my HbA1c under control with that, without medication.

'Sick day rules' eat carbs:drink sugar take medication. Go onto diabetic medication (it screws their ratings that they can't get me to take diabetes medication) and screws their minds that I can do what they said I'd never be able to (control my HbA1c through diet & exercise).

[TippledPink]

My local Waitrose has had a male worker die of Coronavirus- he was well known in the community.

[Keepdistance]

Yes i think we need to see deaths by job role going back to oct/nov.
Dd2 had something in dec while still at preschool but me and dd1 didnt get ill till end of last week of term.
So a natural break in school transmission.
And lots of people usually die dev/jan amyway.

The fact certain professions are lower than you would expect does suggest they got it much earlier or at least feb time.

Can they work the 17% immunity backwards to see where it starts?

Maybe when the antibody tests are released we can all do a chart of location and job...
We may find most teachers are immune/hcp/supermarket workers etc.
If we find a lot of shielding people are or anyone who hasnt been out

[Rosebel]

I think a lot of supermarket staff caught it early on and recovered, at least that's what happened where I worked. Two people ended up in ICU though they recovered so it is affecting them but perhaps not as,much as other jobs. Of course there's no way of knowing where people pick the virus up from anyway.

[Whatsthis1515]

@IncrediblySadToo
Oh that's awful. Do you know though, I had a bad month with my control last year because I had a horrible chest infection and was on steroids which make your blood sugars mad. I went to my diabetic nurse appointment in the middle of it and she was SO nasty, told me I should be managing much better and wrote me a letter giving me my 'first warning' to stop funding for my pump and my libre! I couldn't believe it. I spoke to the manager about it who was very apologetic and I told her that if I was struggling with any other health problem, that they wouldn't threaten to remove my life-line if I was having a bad time of it. Luckily most of my team are really lovely and I hope this woman got a rocket up her arse.

[Walkaround]

Sadie789 - have you tried getting an appointment with a dentist recently? They aren’t dying in droves because they aren’t getting anywhere near many patients, and if and when they do, they have PPE. As for pilots and cabin crew - how many of them do you think are working very hard at the moment? When they were working, cabin crew are generally young and mostly female, and pilots get regular health checks and aren’t allowed to work if they fail them, so they have to be pretty fit, without underlying comorbidities, too.

[JacobReesMogadishu]

And at a google by the 11th May 65 school staff have died of Covid.

And Gove has the nerve to sit there and say he can promise there is no risk to teachers!

[ShootsFruitAndLeaves]

Well actually we don't really. Not yet. We know that more women have died at the hands of domestic partners during lockdown

Not sure that that's true

kareningalasmith.com/2020/04/14/2020/
May:

Two women killed by their partners
One by a gang in a drive by shooting
One by a man 27 years younger with a different surname presumed to be at the same address

April
Apparently 5 women killed by their partners
One double murder (man + woman at same address), possibly DV?
One woman killed by her son
One old woman killed by a younger man who in the past lived at a different address in the city but could have been living there now, idk

March, since lockdown started (26 March)

5 women killed by their husbands
3 further children killed by the same men
1 woman killed by her grandson

1 homeless woman beaten to death in a church doorway

Approx. 20 DV murders over a period of 8 weeks. There were 173 DV murders last year, so there does not appear to be an increase.

There was a spike in deaths at the end of March, but we should be careful about assuming that is evidence of an increase in that the raw numbers are small, and things like family annihilations are not the same statistically as single victim killings and will distort any model that assumes killings are single events

[Walkaround]

As for sex workers - there has been publicity about trying to protect them, and homeless people. There is insufficient data on who and where these people are, though, so you will never get accurate statistics.

[Leflic]

Because only those that die or have miraculous recoveries are reported. I imagine supermarket workers catch it, are ill and then get better. Nothing like dramatic enough for the media to report!

This.

[grumpyorange]

I know lots of people who work in supermarkets and most of them have had 'it' - not tested obviously but classic symptoms. Most of them had their two weeks off and felt better so were told to go back to work!

[SleepingStandingUp]

My sister works in a chain shop, she had it a we think . Quite a few staff there had symptoms. They had a week off, they continued cleaning and hygiene, the shop stayed open.

[OutComeTheWolves]

My friend works in Tesco and has had it.
Maybe the bigger question is why are the media more concerned with telling us about the deaths of doctors and nurses than supermarket workers?
And I haven't fact checked this so I don't know if it's true but I saw a tweet from a head teacher saying that in the UK, 95 teachers have died of coronavirus.

[Sadie789]

I’m talking about pre lockdown and the first weeks of lockdown when we were told the R was around 4 and everything you looked at could potentially give you a dose of COVID.

Why wasn’t there a crisis in these professions?

Cabin crew stuck in planes filled with all nationalities with journeys originating from a multitude of countries? They should all be dead by now, surely...

[Walkaround]

Wheninrometoday - allowing the virus to rip uncontrolled through populations is deadly, due to the number of people at its peak that would be ill and dying at once. So no point pretending everyone can and should go back to business as usual, just because their individual chance of dying or getting very ill is low. Even the over 75s are more likely to survive the virus than die from it. So I’m not sure I get your point? That people shouldn’t be personally worried about dying from covid 19, but have every right to be worried about its overall effect on the world however it is dealt with?

[Aridane]

FFS - read the ONS report - retail workers have high death rates. Doctors and nurses only the same as general population. I guess they aren’t as photogenic

[Sadie789]

@Walkaround sex work has not stopped or decreased in lockdown, quite the opposite, and sex workers are not all Jane Does of no fixed abode.

If they were all catching it in droves we would be hearing about it.

[JustAnotherPoster00]

I work for a top supermarket.

Is that the new term for bot farm?

[theBelgranoSisters]

Look at the stats @bulletjournalbilly really just take a look- everyone on here bleating about bloody Covid, with their health anxieties and 1st world problems..its good for a laugh i suppose. Unless these"frontline workers' are obese, over 45 with 2 or more co-morbidities the chances arent high at all...Then check out the world stats on malaria,polio, measles etc..then compare these to smoking,diabetes&obesity -completely preventable numbers no-one wants to acknowledge. Utter bollox.

[zafferana]

I don't know OP and I think that every time I go to our local Sainsbury's. None of them seem to be wearing masks, all are stocking shelves, walking around close to large numbers of people all day, every day. We, as customers, are urged to socially distance, to shop as infrequently as possible, etc, but yet I go there and think 'How come they're not sick, when they're here all day every day with all of us?'. I mean, I'm really glad that's the case, but it does make me think that community transmission, at least where I live, must have always been quite low. Nowhere here has closed because of an outbreak - no supermarket, pharmacy, bank, post office, corner shop - nothing.