The "vulnerable" at COVID-19.

Summary In France, the beginning of a release from containment since May 11 has been accompanied by recommendations aimed at reducing contact for so-called "vulnerable" populations, i.e. those at increased risk of severe forms of Covid-19 due to their age or pathologies. Thus, the decree of May 5, 2020 defines "vulnerability" in the sense of Article 20 of the Law of April 25, 2020, i.e. as being able to give right to the partial activity device. According to our estimates, excluding age-related criteria, there are 12.6 million vulnerable people in metropolitan France, i.e. 24% of the population. Even if the prevalence of pathologies at risk is linked to age, it remains important at active ages and even if a significant number of vulnerable people are out of work, because of their age, but also because of the selection by health in the job, 4.8 million vulnerable people are employed, i.e. 17.5% of the employed people. If telework is theoretically possible for some of these workers, 3.5 million employed persons would meet the criteria of vulnerability without the possibility of working remotely, including 2.8 million employees. These are concentrated among craftsmen and tradesmen, blue collar workers and to a lesser extent white collar workers. Similarly, employees in agriculture, trade, construction and the food industry are more affected, both because of a higher prevalence of vulnerability and because of a lower propensity to telework than executives or intermediate professions. According to our estimates, under the hypothesis that all employees eligible for partial activity for vulnerability use it, and under the hypothesis that they are not already in partial activity because of a drop in their company's activity, the compensation of the 2.8 million employees concerned would cost the State and Unedic 2.8 billion euros per month and 400 million euros to companies. While the question of the use of protective devices, which we discuss in detail, is central to understanding the economic consequences of protecting vulnerable employees, our evaluation allows us to estimate the economic impact of targeted reconfinement measures that could be put in place in the event of an epidemic rebound and that would result in the systematic withdrawal of vulnerable people in employment who cannot telework. These targeted measures would help mitigate the economic shock of reconfinement.