Foreigners and the pandemic: a discussion of its impact

According to a recent survey, foreigners are doubly most likely to contract Coronavirus, since the majority of them are essential workers whose activity cannot draw to a halt, such as in the healthcare system, in retail, deliveries, and domestic work. Moreover, foreign people make up 24 per cent of doctors and 16 per cent of nurses in the 36 OECD countries.

The number of foreigners working as agricultural labourers rose during the emergency, reaching the figure of 40 thousand people and increasing by 15 percentage points. This increment has worsened the conditions of employment and prolonged the working hours.

In the case of Italy, the pandemic has coincided with the partial failure of the regularisation of illegal immigrants, but it has also brought about an increase in hate and xenophobia fomented by the search for a scapegoat, as the 2020 Dossier statistico immigrazione (Statistical dossier on immigration) shows.

In light of the several episodes of racism across Europe, Elena D’Angelo from the Research centre on security and crime (Rissc) declared that immigrants are «paying the ultimate price for the pandemic, and they are running the risk of being the most exposed subjects to the spread of the virus now and in the near future». 

According to researcher Alessio D’Angelo from Nottingham University, the pandemic has «highlighted all the problems and inefficiencies of the European system in terms of rights and economic migrations». 

Measures such as the closure of Schengenland, the flight bans, and the restrictions on movements have deeply affected foreigners: more than the 30 per cent of working-age immigrants are classified as essential. Indeed, a disproportional number of deaths was recorded among them – even in those countries with universal access to treatment for Covid-19.