A new report suggests New York City’s firefighters and EMS workers were 15 times more likely to be infected with COVID-19 during the first wave of the pandemic.
The study, published Thursday in ERJ Open Research, studied nearly 11 thousand firefighters and 35 hundred EMTs and paramedics from March to the end of May.
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Researchers found 36.2% of them were either confirmed to have the virus or suspected to having COVID-19 because of their symptoms. The rate for the general population was 2.4% for the same time period.
The study also found compared to firefighters, EMTs and paramedics were more likely to contract the virus and to develop severe COVID-19.