Hospital Employee Health
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OSHA Steps in to Protect Healthcare Workers from COVID-19
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has issued a National Emphasis Program to ensure employees in high-hazard industries like healthcare are protected from contracting SARS-CoV-2. But a somewhat controversial problem is that researchers are finding most of the COVID-19 infections in healthcare workers are acquired in the community.
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Vaccinated HCWs Can Be Trusted Voice to Communities, Colleagues
Healthcare workers (HCWs) immunized against COVID-19 can be trusted voices to instill vaccine confidence in their colleagues and communities, public health officials and clinicians emphasize. Role-modeling of immunization also might encourage HCWs who are reluctant to take a vaccine. In a recent poll of 1,327 HCWs, 27% said they do not plan to take a COVID-19 vaccine, or have not yet decided. Breaking down the results, 17% of the HCWs polled do not plan to take the vaccine, and 10% were undecided.
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U.K. Physicians with Long COVID Call for Action
In an unusual appeal from healthcare workers stricken with the malingering symptoms of long COVID, a letter signed by more than 40 physicians calls for more surveillance and research into the poorly understood condition.
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Long-Term Care Workers Refusing COVID-19 Vaccines
In what would appear to go beyond vaccine hesitancy to outright refusal, 62.5% of staff at thousands of skilled nursing facilities have turned down COVID-19 vaccines. Along with other healthcare workers in hospitals and other settings, long-term care staff were considered a top vaccine priority because they care for frail residents, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports.
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A Third Arrow in the Quiver: FDA Grants Emergency Use of New Vaccine
The Food and Drug Administration has issued an emergency use authorization for a third vaccine COVID-19 in the United States, approving Janssen Biotech’s vaccine for administration to those 18 years and older.
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The Long Tail of COVID-19
There now is an open question about whether some people — healthcare workers and the public alike — could experience recurrent COVID-19 symptoms for years. This is the nightmarish world of the so-called “long-haulers,” who have developed a seemingly chronic condition the Centers for Disease and Control and Prevention is calling “long COVID.”
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Staggering COVID-19 Mortality Rates During Pregnancy
Pregnant women, some of them healthcare workers, are dying at high rates after contracting COVID-19. The COVID-19 vaccine risk is unknown because pregnant women were not included in early clinical trials. However, the emerging data on the threat of COVID-19 infection during pregnancy is tilting the risk-benefit equation.
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No One Really Knows How Many HCWs Have Died of COVID-19
While healthcare workers literally bear witness to death, who tolls the bell for them? There is no official count for healthcare workers who have died of COVID-19. Ask how many of these heroes have put their lives on the line and lost them in the process, and one enters a maze of incomplete reports collected from limited jurisdictions, mixed with extrapolations and models confounded with variables.
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Pandemic Fatigue Is Real, but Is Public Masking Improving?
As SARS-CoV-2 variant strains emerge and vaccine supplies remain uncertain, the need to mask, social distance, and use other nonpharmaceutical interventions is critical. Researchers found that masking increased from 39% to 89% from April to November 2020.
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CDC Revises COVID-19 Quarantine Guidance
In a move that affects healthcare workers and their patients, the CDC has refined its guidance regarding the length of quarantine for individuals exposed to COVID-19. Previously, CDC recommendations stated those exposed to someone with the virus should quarantine for 14 days to prevent the potential spread of the disease to others. However, experts have concluded a shorter quarantine period should be safe in most cases.