Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America.
Manulife Canada, Toronto, ON, Canada.
PLoS One. 2020 Dec 4;15(12):e0242589. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0242589. eCollection 2020.
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.
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.
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.
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.
根据疫情早期的数据，我们估计美国（US）可能有多少医院工作人员会在 COVID-19 大流行期间感染或死亡。
我们根据中国湖北和意大利的观察数据，计算了每 100 例与 COVID-19 相关的死亡人数中美国医院工作人员的感染率和死亡率。我们使用蒙特卡罗模拟根据这两种情况中的每一种计算了美国医院工作人员（HW）感染的点估计值和 95%置信区间。我们还评估了限制年龄≥60 岁的医院工作人员从事患者护理活动对这些估计的影响。
我们估计美国约有 53000 名医院工作人员会感染 COVID19，其中 1579 人可能因 COVID19 死亡。仅为高风险工作人员提供个人防护设备就可以将这一数字减少到约 28000 例感染和 850 例死亡。限制年龄≥60 岁的高风险医院工作人员直接接触患者可以将感染人数减少到 2000 名医护人员感染和 60 人死亡。
我们估计美国医院工作人员将因 COVID-19 而遭受重大疾病负担。为所有医院工作人员提供个人防护设备并减少 60 岁以上医院工作人员的接触，可以降低这些风险。
