This article is a first of its kind, and looks to describe the incidence and patterns of infection in medical staff dealing with the Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak in Wuhan. The authors identify inadequate PPE as the primary source of infection causes in healthcare workers. There were two waves of infection. Initially low level PPE protocols were implemented (level 1 protocols), causing large numbers of infections among healthcare workers. These rates dropped when PPE requirements were raised to level 3 protocols. However, this equipment did eventually run out while at level 3 protocols, and these levels of PPE could not be continued. This accounted for the second increase in infection rates in healthcare workers. Administration and other supportive staff were also affected and the authors also note that potential missed cases with asymptomatic or atypical initial symptoms, or false-negative result of nucleic acid tests probably underestimated the infection rates overall.
This virus caused considerable infection in healthcare workers in China, with over 3000 cases in the 422 involved medical facilities as reported by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) up to February 22th, 2020. 64% of these occurred in Wuhan.
Reference:
Gong H, Feng H, Yu L, Tu N, Wang T, Yao Y, Wei Y, Wang Y, Hu W, Li X, Fu Z, Song X, Song Q, Bu L, COVID-19 infection among medical staff in Wuhan: A retrospective study from a single-center, CHEST (2020), doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chest.2020.05.529.
You can find the article here:
https://journal.chestnet.org/article/S0012-3692(20)31455-0/pdf
