Covid-19 has infected over 62,000 US healthcare workers and 291 have died but CDC warns numbers are higher
More than 62,000 doctors, nurses and other healthcare providers in the US have contracted the Covid-19, up from 9,282 about six weeks ago, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). At least 291 of them have succumbed to the infection. The CDC also added that the number of cases among these providers may not reflect the ground situation.
The federal health agency collected data on 1.3 million people, of whom only 21.3% of them revealed that they treated patients on the frontlines. Even the number of fatalities could be higher than estimates because the federal health agency had access to the death status of only 56.9 % of the 62,000 infections.
Dr Iahn Gonsenhauser, chief quality and patient safety officer at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center in Columbus told NBC News that he felt "great sadness and loss" on learning that so many colleagues had been affected by Covid-19. Healthcare workers have a higher risk of infections due to exposure to the virus, long working hours, psychological distress, fatigue, occupational burnout, stigma and violence, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
On April 21, the UN agency said that the virus had infected over 35, 000 health workers across the world, adding that these numbers are underestimating the true magnitude. The high Covid-19 burden in the US may be down to shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE), such as masks or gowns. "I think that it provides some sobering assessment of the challenges that we had with the supply chain in our country," Gonsenhauser added. According to a Lancet Correspondence, there is a tremendous need for PPE among health-care organizations throughout the country.
However, Gonsenhauser does not rule out the possibility that medical providers may have contracted the infection in a community setting. The CDC has not provided information as to how the infected providers caught the disease. A few studies have investigated how the new coronavirus strikes frontline health workers.
According to one Chinese study conducted in a hospital, the most common route of exposure to the virus was hospital setting: 59% of the infected providers reporting contact with infected patients and about 11% with infected co-workers. A small number of providers also seem to have come into contact with the virus in a community setting.
Even providers treating patients without coronavirus infections have reported infections. A study involving 9,684 medical workers at Tongji Hospital in Wuhan found that 110 (1.1%) tested positive for the virus. Of them, 0.5% of the healthcare workers treating patients with confirmed or suspected cases developed the infection, while 1.6% of those treating other non-coronavirus patients tested positive.
According to the CDC's earlier data, most infections were mild: about 90% of infected providers were not hospitalized. The federal agency calls for increased surveillance to understand the total number of Covid-19 cases among medical workers. It had earlier said the numbers are expected to rise. "It is critical to make every effort to ensure the health and safety of this essential national workforce of approximately 18M healthcare personnel, both at work and in the community," they wrote.