Occupational risk of COVID-19 in the 1st vs 2nd wave of infection

Magnusson, K.; Nygard, K. M.; Vold, L.; Telle, K. E.

Aim: To study whether employees in occupations that typically imply close contact with other people are at higher risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection (COVID-19) and related hospitalization, for the 1st and 2nd wave of infection in Norway. Methods: In 3 553 407 residents of Norway on January 1st 2020 aged 20-70 (with mean [SD] age 44.1 [14.3] years and 51% men), we studied whether persons in occupations in touch with pupils/students/patients/customers (using Standard Classification of Occupations [ISCO-08 codes]) had a higher risk of 1) COVID-19 and 2) hospitalization with COVID-19, compared to everyone aged 20-70 years using logistic regression adjusted for age, sex and birth country. Results: Nurses, physicians, dentists, physiotherapists, bus/tram and taxi drivers had 1.5-3.5 times the odds of COVID-19 during the 1st wave of infection when compared to everyone in their working age. In the 2nd wave of the epidemic, bartenders, waiters, food service counter attendants, taxi drivers and travel stewards had 1.5-4 times the odds of COVID-19 when compared to everyone in their working age. Teachers had no or only a moderately increased odds of COVID-19. Occupation may be of limited relevance for the odds of severe COVID-19, here studied as hospitalization with the disease. Conclusion: Studying the entire Norwegian population using international standardized codes of occupations, our findings may be of relevance to national and regional authorities in handling the epidemic. Also, our findings provide a knowledge foundation for the more targeted future studies of lockdown and disease control measures.