https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/nursing-home-workers-had-one-of-the-deadliest-jobs-of-2020/

When you think of the most dangerous jobs in the U.S., you might imagine something like logging, fishing or truck driving. But in 2020 one of the deadliest professions of all did not involve operating heavy machinery, braving the elements or driving big rigs—but rather caring for the elderly.

As COVID-19 swept across the world last year, death rates among nursing home staff ranked among the highest for any job in the U.S., based on a Scientific American analysis of data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But the CMS, which sets quality standards for skilled nursing facilities, only started requiring nursing homes to report such deaths in May 2020—just after last spring’s devastating peak in COVID deaths in parts of the country. So the calculated death rate is almost certainly an undercount, says Judith Chevalier, a Yale University professor of finance and economics who helped analyze the data.