Initial estimates of COVID-19 infections in hospital workers in the United States during the first wave of pandemic.

• Main Authors: Junaid A Razzak, Junaid A Bhatti, Muhammad Ramzan Tahir, Omrana Pasha-Razzak
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2020-01-01
• Series: PLoS ONE
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0242589

<h4>Objective</h4>We estimated the number of hospital workers in the United States (US) that might be infected or die during the COVID-19 pandemic based on the data in the early phases of the pandemic.<h4>Methods</h4>We calculated infection and death rates amongst US hospital workers per 100 COVID-19-related deaths in the general population based on observed numbers in Hubei, China, and Italy. We used Monte Carlo simulations to compute point estimates with 95% confidence intervals for hospital worker (HW) infections in the US based on each of these two scenarios. We also assessed the impact of restricting hospital workers aged ≥ 60 years from performing patient care activities on these estimates.<h4>Results</h4>We estimated that about 53,000 hospital workers in the US could get infected, and 1579 could die due to COVID19. The availability of PPE for high-risk workers alone could reduce this number to about 28,000 infections and 850 deaths. Restricting high-risk hospital workers such as those aged ≥ 60 years from direct patient care could reduce counts to 2,000 healthcare worker infections and 60 deaths.<h4>Conclusion</h4>We estimate that US hospital workers will bear a significant burden of illness due to COVID-19. Making PPE available to all hospital workers and reducing the exposure of hospital workers above the age of 60 could mitigate these risks.