COVID was a “class killer,” the Scottish Covid-19 Inquiry has heard.

STUC general secretary Roz Foyer made the remarks as she, along with a number of trade unionists, gave their evidence to the inquiry today.

The STUC’s evidence submitted to the inquiry was based on research by Strathclyde University’s Professor Phil Taylor, which found health and social care workers were four times more likely to be exposed to the virus than those across all other industries.

Ms Foyer told the inquiry this additonal risk was far from reflected in workers’ pay packets.

She said: “You can go and get a job in a supermarket and earn more money than you can doing the highly skilled work involved in being a social care worker.”

The STUC’s written evidence had echoed the 2020 Covid-19 Marmot Review in using the term “social gradient” to describe the effects on those workers.

Ms Foyer said: “There is evidence to show that Covid was a class killer.

“Your social class matters in terms of whether or not you contracted Covid, and is a determinant in how severe the virus may be.

“We found that when you start to break down the occupations, then those who worked in clinical higher grades for example were less likely to be exposed to Covid or have a fatality from Covid, whereas those on lower grades and in lower social economic groups would be more likely to succumb.

“People like those cleaning out ambulances, the porters, and the cleaners in hospitals were not being given the kit and the best PPE, but they were undoubtedly being exposed to a virus we now know was airborne on a daily basis.”

The inquiry heard that many of those low-paid workers now make up the lion’s share of the 175,000 estimated to now be suffering from the myriad debilitating effects of Long Covid — with knock-on effects for the health and social care sector.

In a statement calling for Long Covid to be recognised as an industrial disease, Ms Foyer said: “For years to come, front-line workers, some of the lowest paid in our economy, will suffer having their lives irrevocably altered as a result of their work during the pandemic.

“We must now see moves to introduce welfare benefits that help those suffering long-Covid followed by strident Scottish government action that properly commemorates those who died in service to their work and our country during the pandemic.”