Health Care Workers not in the frontline are more frequently carriers of Coronavirus Disease 2019: The Experience of a Tertiary Portuguese Hospital

Abstract

Background Health care workers (HCWs) have a high risk of infection with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), especially those treating patients with confirmed or suspected diagnosis (front-line). Aim To evaluate the incidence and prevalence of the COVID-19 infection among HCWs and to analyse the risk factors and the clinical characteristics among infected ones. Methods Observational, retrospective, single-center study (Centro Hospitalar e Universitário de Coimbra, Portugal). Data were collected from March 1 to June 30, 2020. Findings Overall, 211 (2.63%) out of 8037 HCWs were diagnosed with COVID-19. Most of the infections occurred during the early stage of disease outbreak. Among the infected HCWs, only 20.9% (n=44) were from the front-line. Both front-line and non-front-line HCWs were exposed primarily to patients (48.6% in both groups), but the non-front -line were (presumably) more infected by colleagues (10.8% vs 24.8%, p =0.04). Front-line HCWs performed more family isolation than non-front -line (88.9% vs 82.5%, p >0.05) and presumably less family members were infected in the former group (19.4% vs 26.3%, p >0.05). The proportion of HCWs with asymptomatic infection was statistically significantly lower in the front-line group (2.4% vs 19.9%, p =0.05). Conclusion The prevention and control actions implemented were effective in mitigating the COVID-19 outbreak; HCW infections occurred mainly in the early stages. Non-front -line HCWs were at a higher risk, warranting specific attention and interventions targeting this group.

Global Percentage of Asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 Infections Among the Tested Population and Individuals With Confirmed COVID-19 Diagnosis

“…Of these, 282 studies underwent full-text review. Ninety-five studies with information concerning the percentage of asymptomatic infections among the tested and confirmed populations were included in the final analysis (Figure 1).…”

“…Among 95 studies, 18 were excluded because that the percentage of asymptomatic infections among the confirmed population was 100% . The remaining 77 studies were included in the meta-analysis for the percentage of asymptomatic infections among the confirmed population, covering 19 884 individuals with confirmed COVID-19, among whom 11 069 had asymptomatic infections. The pooled percentage of asymptomatic infections among the confirmed population was 40.50% (95% CI, 33.50%-47.50%), with high heterogeneity among studies ( I 2 = 99%; P < .001) (eFigure 2 in the Supplement).…”

Prevalence and factors associated with COVID-19 among healthcare workers at a university hospital in Thailand

“…The proportion of COVID-19 in HCWs in our study was 4.2%, while and the rate of HCWs infected in China was 0.2% and in France was 21.0% (Table 3), [15,20,[25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33] varying according to the time period measured and the COVID-19 outbreak situation in each country. A much higher incidence of infection among HCWs was observed in regions with high population incidence and prevalence, with significantly strained healthcare systems.…”

“…Rate of COVID-19 in HCWs across different countries. [15,20,[25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33] Country (numbers of case)…”

Análise de custos da primeira vaga da pandemia COVID-19 na gestão de recursos humanos num hospital português

“…The number of confirmed cases continues to increase worldwide, with over 102.1 million reported cases and over 2.2 million deaths since February 2, 2021 (World Health Organization, 2020b). Human resource management in health institutions has faced unprecedented trials, requiring substitution of workers due to infection/disease and subsequent periods of absenteeism, the creation of new services, mobility, recruitment of health workers, overtime work, among other adjustments (American Hospital Association, 2020; Kaye et al, 2020;Santos et al, 2020). All these dynamics have important implications for human resource management and represent major economic challenges.…”