Taxi drivers will be interested to read that, several months ago, the Office for National Statistics published statistics for “Coronavirus (COVID-19) related deaths by occupation, England and Wales: deaths registered between 9 March and 25 May 2020”. This looked at different occupational groups for both males and females between 20 to 64 years of age.
The research revealed that taxi drivers and chauffeurs had a very high rate of deaths with there being 65.3 deaths per 100,000 as a result of getting the coronavirus. This is obviously a statistic that will give concern to numerous taxi Hull drivers. At the time of writing, the above were the most current figures available. It will be interesting to read any up to date statistics that become available in the coming weeks/months.
As you will no doubt be aware vaccinations are now available here in the UK and these are gradually being rolled out to people. Obviously, priority is being issued to certain groups of people such as the elderly. In light of the above statistic relating to taxi drivers it begs the question whether taxi drivers should be near the top of the list when it comes to deciding who should receive the vaccination.
There are no doubt many factors that need to be taken into account when deciding which occupations should receive the vaccination as a matter of priority. For instance, NHS workers are presumably at a great risk of contracting COVID-19 as many of them are coming into contact with patients that have the disease. Teachers are still coming into contact with many children on a regular basis so should they receive the vaccination as a matter of priority to avoid passing on the virus to pupils who, in turn, could go home and infect family members.
We are living in difficult times. Let us hope that those making such decisions make the right ones. We will endeavor to keep our readers updated with any new statistics relating to taxi drivers and COVID-19 deaths.
