More Patients Getting Covid At Hospitals, Experts Worry Infected Health Workers Are Sick On The Job

[appalachiablue]

Last edited Sun Jan 16, 2022, 06:26 PM - Edit history (1)

- Business Insider, 'More patients are getting COVID-19 during hospital stays. Experts worry it's because infected healthcare workers are sick on the job.' Jan. 16, 2022. - Ed.

- The CDC announced looser isolation rules for healthcare workers in Dec. amid staffing shortages.
- The number of inpatients who contracted COVID-19 during their hospital stays rose shortly afterward.
- Disease experts worry the CDC policy is fueling in-hospital transmission as infected employees return to work.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stunned many disease experts last month when it announced healthcare workers could return to work 7 days after testing positive for COVID-19, instead of its previous 10-day recommendation. The policy applies to people who are asymptomatic, or whose mild or moderate symptoms are improving, and test negative within 48 hours of returning to work. But the CDC said the isolation period could be cut even more- down to 5 days- in the event of staffing shortages.

In that case, healthcare workers wouldn't need to test out of isolation. And in a crisis scenario, when there's no longer enough staff to provide safe patient care, there would be no work restrictions at all, the CDC said.

Nearly 25% of US hospitals are reporting critical staffing shortages, according to the latest data from the US Dept. of Health & Human Services (HHS). Often, that means having to choose between treating sick patients & allowing infected employees to return to work (though hospitals can decide for themselves what constitutes a critical shortage, per NPR). But disease experts fear the CDC policy is fueling in-hospital transmission, since research shows that some people with COVID-19 can still be infectious for up to 10 days. "It's a little bit of pandemic theater. You're making the decision to bring healthcare workers back when they're sick," said Susan Butler-Wu, prof. of clinical pathology at the Univ. of Southern Calif. "I don't think the data support that."

A week after the CDC's announcement on Dec. 23, the total number of hospitalized patients who contracted COVID-19 at least 2 weeks into their hospital stay went up 80%- from around 1,200 to 2,200 patients- according to HHS data. Those patients "initially came into the hospital for something other than COVID & then were found to be positive," said Dr. Jorge Caballero, a data scientist with the nonprofit Coders Against COVID. "The only place that they can possibly get COVID is in the hospital, because that's where they've been & they didn't have it to begin with."... https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/more-patients-are-getting-covid-19-during-hospital-stays-experts-worry-it-s-because-infected-healthcare-workers-are-sick-on-the-job/ar-AASPNRd
________

- Health care workers are panicked as desperate hospitals ask infected staff to return, Politico, Jan. 10, 2022.
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/01/10/doctors-covid-staff-shortage-526842

.. “We don't have good choices- or the choices that we want,” said Shereef Elnahal, the CEO of University Hospital in Newark, N.J. and the state’s former health commissioner. “Our staffing situation has been the worst it's been since the spring of 2020." Three hundred of his 3,700 workers are out, many infected with Covid-19. While most health workers are vaccinated, many are still falling sick, exacerbating a staff shortage as more Americans seek hospital care. The reliance on employees who may still be infectious comes despite objections from nurses‘ unions & the American Medical Association, which warned the decision puts patients' health & safety at risk. And there are no requirements that patients be notified if their caregiver is sick.

Still, the practice is happening across the country. In New Jersey, a nurse was recently instructed to come to work despite concerns that she had contracted Covid-19, according to a union representative. In Rhode Island, a nursing home & state-run hospital system recently used workers who tested positive after the state updated its guidelines in accordance with the CDC. In Missouri, a hospital is bringing back nurses after 5 days as long as they are asymptomatic. Health care workers around the country have reported that they are being called in to work even if they suspect they are infectious...

[bhikkhu]

1. I wouldn't be surprised. People work, go to school, whatever else when sick.

This being the US, that's how it's been everywhere I've lived and worked in the country. Pandemic, sure, but the most common thing I've heard is "it's not that bad" one way or another. Which means even when people put up a show of masking and "isolating", they still basically make excuses to live their lives like normal.

Probably it's different in other countries, because going around sick or being in denial about being sick isn't especially cool most places (I've read). But it's always been pretty normal here. I think it has to do with our supposed meritocracy thing, where we're really in competition with all of our peers and showing weakness is not something most of us can afford to do. Even without that aspect, missing work or school is also not something most of us can afford to do. And going to the doctor to see if you're really sick - that's something you don't even think of as long as you can still eat and walk and stuff. Can't afford that either.

It would be nice to think that going into healthcare people were different, but I doubt it. My own habits in that regard were pretty well set by about 3rd grade.

[Deep State Witch]

2. I think that's what happened to my friend's sister

She's disabled, and was taken to the hospital last week for something else. Now she's got COVID and is on a ventilator. Vaxxed and boosted, too.

[wnylib]

3. This shortsightedness creates a

continual feedback loop.

Hospitals are short staffed because of large numbers of covid patients who are infecting employees. So sick hospital employees are allowed to return to work where they infect more patients who infect more staff who then infect more patients, etc. etc. etc.

Brilliant. Not.

[appalachiablue]

4. Also many of the corporate, for profit hospitals

operate at the margins. No extra nurses, beds, supplies, doctors or waste in order to save costs and maximize profits. Very detrimental in a crisis such as this.

[Moebym]

5. This may have happened to a friend's mother, who's a cancer patient,

She took a few nasty spills last weekend and ended up in the ER.