For people with a Moroccan, Turkish and Surinamese migration background, the risk of dying from corona is 1.6 to 1.8 times higher than for people with a Dutch background. People with a low income are also significantly more at risk.
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This is apparent from research by Statistics Netherlands (CBS) and the Amsterdam UMC into mortality during the first year of the corona pandemic. People in the lowest income group are 2.5 times more likely to die from Covid-19 than people in the highest income group.
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Both people with a low income and the elderly with a migration background often live unhealthier lives, which means that they die faster anyway. Overweight, diabetes and cardiovascular disease are additional risk factors for a fatal outcome in the case of corona, explains CBS spokesperson Ruben van Gaalen. “In addition, tighter housing and working conditions seem to play a role. People with a low income more often work in sectors where it is not possible to work from home or to comply with the corona advice, such as in factories. Due to language problems, the rules of conduct to prevent infections were perhaps less clear to them. They are also more likely to live in multi-generational households, which increases the chance that parents or grandparents with vulnerable health will be infected.
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Big cities
At the start of the second corona wave, significantly more people died from corona in the major cities than in the rest of the country. 23 percent of the deaths in the four major cities had Covid-19 as the cause of death, compared to 15 percent elsewhere.
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The first wave mainly affected North Brabant and Limburg, explains Van Gaalen. “Back then, healthy people brought corona from travel and winter sports. It crept into nursing homes and affected some vulnerable people, but less than in the second wave, when the major cities were much more infected. More people with low incomes and a migration background live there. Despite the experience we had by then, it turned out to be very difficult to protect vulnerable people against corona.”
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During the second wave of corona, residents of nursing homes were almost as likely to die from corona than during the first wave, when there was a major shortage of face masks, the figures also show. The extra protective measures taken in the course of 2020 therefore appear to have had little effect, concludes Statistics Netherlands. It may be that there was little influx of new residents for a while due to the controversial visiting ban, says Van Gaalen. “People who have lived in a nursing home for a long time often have very vulnerable health and are therefore more at risk of dying from corona.”
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