Clinical Excellence Research Center, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.
Occup Med (Lond). 2021 Feb 6;71(1):25-27. doi: 10.1093/occmed/kqaa210.
More than 100 US physicians have died from COVID-19. I considered the number of US physician deaths in comparison to the expected COVID death rate in the general population.
To estimate the whether US physicians are at increased risk of death from COVID-19 due to occupational exposures.
COVID-related physician deaths were identified through searches using Medscape In Memoriam, and multiple internet searches using Google and Facebook. An obituary or death notice was obtained in all but one case. Death rates among physicians were compared to the expected rate based on COVID deaths in the US population.
Up to 7 October 2020, there were 108 deaths among US physicians. Physicians make up about 0.33% of the US population. By 1 October 2020, there were 210 000 COVID deaths in the US population with 693 expected physician deaths. Observed deaths were 16% of expected. Seventy-five per cent of the deaths occurred among physicians older than age 60 and about half appeared to be among those retired from clinical practice.
Observed physician deaths were significantly below expected based on deaths the general population. Prudent use of personal protective equipment may explain the lower-than-expected death rates.
已有超过 100 名美国医生死于 COVID-19。我考虑了美国医生的死亡人数与普通人群中 COVID 死亡率的预期相比。
评估由于职业暴露，美国医生是否因 COVID-19 而面临更高的死亡风险。
通过在 Medscape 纪念册中搜索以及使用 Google 和 Facebook 进行多次互联网搜索，确定了与 COVID 相关的医生死亡人数。除了一个案例外，在所有情况下都获得了讣告或死亡通知。将医生的死亡率与基于美国人口中 COVID 死亡人数的预期率进行了比较。
截至 2020 年 10 月 7 日，美国有 108 名医生死亡。医生约占美国人口的 0.33%。到 2020 年 10 月 1 日，美国有 21 万人死于 COVID，预期有 693 名医生死亡。观察到的死亡人数占预期的 16%。75%的死亡发生在 60 岁以上的医生中，大约一半似乎是那些已从临床实践中退休的医生。
根据普通人群的死亡情况，观察到的医生死亡人数明显低于预期。谨慎使用个人防护设备可能可以解释较低的死亡率。
