It is unclear how hospital staff infected with coronavirus disease (COVID-19) are diagnosed and treated, and the impact of COVID-19 on hospitals. This study investigated the symptoms, diagnosis, treatment, and impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on hospital workers in December 2022. Overall, 1464 hospital workers were surveyed by an anonymous investigator using the Questionnaire Star APP, File S1, Supplemental Digital Content, https://links.lww.com/MD/P619 (15 items). Among participants, 87.64% were diagnosed with COVID-19 and 78.79% had been infected within 15 days. Higher non-infection rate occurred in males (16.15%), aged >50 years (31.77%), and service workers (32.02%). Of the 1283 infected patients, 14.50%, 40.45%, and 45.05% were diagnosed by nucleic acid detection, antigen testing, and self-diagnosis based on symptoms, respectively. Predominant symptoms included cough (88.54%), fever (79.42%), body pains (73.03%), and expectoration (70.30%). Individuals experiencing symptoms lasting 15 days were 22.53%, 31.33%, 21.67%, and 24.47%, respectively. The 3 most severe symptoms were cough (28.37%), body aches (22.37%), and fever (13.79), with 55.88% participants having severe symptoms lasting <5 days. Critically, 73.3% of infected staff required sick leave (mean 3.2 days), causing severe workforce shortages. Despite mild disease severity (low hospitalization), few underwent lab tests (10.5%), or computer tomography scans (8.2%); 92.52% infected patients received medications to alleviate symptoms, and the most common drugs included antipyretic and analgesic drugs (86.05%), antitussive drugs (56.97%), antiviral drugs (40.61%), and traditional Chinese medicine (33.01%). In summary, COVID-19 spread rapidly across hospitals in December 2022, resulting in high rate of absenteeism, demonstrating that even clinically mild outbreaks can critically disrupt healthcare capacity through staff depletion.
Pu et al. (Fri,) studied this question.