Being an Artist Is the Second Safest Profession Amid a Coronavirus Outbreak (Behind Loggers), Data Says

Want to avoid catching the coronavirus? Maybe you should have
been an artist.

Fine artists, including painters, sculptors, and illustrators,
have a remarkably low risk for contacting the disease, according to
new data compiled by the New York
Times. The chart plots two axes—the degree of physical
proximity to others inherent in the profession, and how frequently
the different occupations bring their workers into contact
with disease.

Art is the second-safest career, with a physical proximity score
of nine and a disease exposure of zero. That ranks it behind only
loggers, who score one on exposure and seven on proximity, and just
ahead of authors and writers, who are at zero on exposure but 14 on
proximity.

Curators, on the other hand, are clustered solidly in the lower
middle of the pack, ranking five for exposure and 44 for proximity.
(The amount of travel required by the job probably doesn’t help.)
Museum conservators, meanwhile, score zero for disease, but 55 for
proximity (presumably since they cannot do their job from home).
Graphic designers have comparatively less risk: they score zero for
exposure and 34 for how close they typically get to other
people.

Those at the highest risk to contract the disease, as one might
expect, are health care workers, including registered nurses (they
rank 80 for exposure, 77 for proximity) as well as paramedics (89
for exposure, 97 for proximity).

To compile the graph, which can be searched by profession,
the Times used O*NET, a Department of Labor
database that tracks the physical attributes of different jobs,
such as how often a telephone is used and how often a job
requires the worker to bend down.

Though the lack of risk to artists is certainly heartening to
those who work in the art world, the industry is still likely to be
hit hard economically by the global spread of the disease. With
museums and galleries
shutting down for the foreseeable future, many workers are
without jobs. And artists—who, like other freelance workers, often
lack health insurance or paid sick leave—will certainly experience
a blow from canceled shows and speaking gigs as well as a lack of
buying activity.

It remains to be seen how how small businesses, meanwhile, will
weather the crisis, and how people in low-paying art jobs such as
security guards, gallery assistants, and art handlers will survive
what will almost certainly be an extended period without pay.

For a list of resources available to freelance artists suffering
a loss of income as a result of the coronavirus outbreak, click here.

The post Being an Artist Is the Second Safest Profession
Amid a Coronavirus Outbreak (Behind Loggers), Data Says
appeared first on artnet News.