Like grocery store workers and other essential workers, their work cannot be done from home.
“As frontliners, we can do everything right, but still be exposed because we are exposed to work, which we simply cannot avoid,” said Dr. David Rosman, a radiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and president of the Massachusetts Medical Society. . “Being in health care right now meant you were at risk for COVID.”
Rosman knows this firsthand. He felt symptoms in January – he was fatigued and could not taste his food – after his wife, Dr. Samantha Rosman, an emergency care physician at Boston Children’s Hospital, fell ill. The couple and their children, ages 8 and 10, all tested positive for COVID. No one became seriously ill.
They don’t know exactly how they were exposed.
“But we haven’t been to a restaurant since March, we haven’t been to a grocery store, we haven’t been to any store,” said Rosman, 44. “Our existence is Instacart and home and work. point of contact for both of us is work. “
To assess how many hospital workers had contracted COVID, the Globe examined the state’s largest hospital systems and academic medical centers, including Mass General Brigham, Beth Israel Lahey, UMass Memorial, Baystate, Wellforce, Boston Medical Center, and Boston Children’s Hospital. Steward Health Care did not respond.
Mass General Brigham said more than 5,000 of his employees, or 6.6 percent, tested positive for COVID from the start of the pandemic to early February, while Beth Israel Lahey said more than 3,000, or 8.5 percent, COVID had. At BMC, 11.8 percent of the workforce, or more than 1,000 people, tested positive for COVID over the same period.
As more health workers receive their vaccinations and community spread slows, the number of new infections is declining.
The Department of Health does not specifically report infections among hospital staff, but a 2020 law requires the department to monitor the professions of people who test positive for COVID. This information was out of date for many months until early February, when, after inquiries from the Globe, government officials released new figures shedding light on what kind of workers are most affected.
State officials counted 4,275 nurses in Massachusetts who tested positive between March 10 and December 31, 2020. During the same period, 3,178 nurses, psychiatric assistants, and home care workers tested positive, as well as 499 doctors and 921 medical assistants. The data does not indicate whether these medical professionals work in hospitals or other settings.
The number of deaths is more difficult to pinpoint, although a project by The Guardian and Kaiser Health News counts 74 Massachusetts health workers who have died from COVID.
Nationally, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that more than 408,000 health workers have contracted COVID and more than 1,400 have died.
“COVID is the first time I’ve been really scared about going to work,” said Trish Powers, 58, a longtime nurse at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. For months, Powers thought about thoughts like “If I hold my patient’s hand, will I get sick?” and “Oh my god, did I touch my eye? Did I give myself COVID? “
Her fears were not unfounded. She tested positive for COVID in mid-December, an infection she suspects she picked up in a hospital break room where employees took off their masks to eat and drink. Hospitals, including the Brigham, have designed break areas where employees can sit 6 feet apart when unmasking. But there is still the option of transmission.
Powers, who leads the nurses union in the Brigham and usually spends hours on her feet in an operating theater every shift, has been out of work for two months, her recovery hampered by cardiac complications and persistent fatigue.
It seems unfair that she got sick despite trying to follow the rules – wearing a mask, washing her hands, avoiding gatherings – but she also knows how much worse it could have been. She will never forget the people she saw dying of COVID last spring when she was sent to the ICU. “You are so lucky that things are going well,” she tells herself.
Hospital employees who test positive for COVID must stay home for at least 10 days. But some, like Powers, can be off for weeks or months, depending on the severity of their illness. This has led to an already stressed workforce.
During the peak in December and January, healthy employees worked extra shifts, skipped vacations and were transferred to new departments to meet patient demand, while so many of their colleagues were sick with COVID. For example, at Baystate Health, about 450 people were out of work in mid-December because they were sick with or exposed to COVID.
Despite the large number of hospital employees contracted by COVID, hospital officials claim that most became infected through exposure to the community, not during their shifts.
When caring for COVID patients, front-line workers wear masks, eye protection, coats, and gloves – which are largely effective at preventing infection when worn properly. Even staff who are not treating patients typically wear masks and eye protection on the job.
A growing body of evidence suggests that the spread of the virus through the community and demographic factors such as race and zip code are greater risk factors than having someone work in a hospital, said Dr. Erica S. Shenoy, deputy chief of infection control at Massachusetts General Hospital, where more than 2,000 employees tested positive for COVID in the past 11 months.
The number of health workers infected with COVID peaked in April and again around the winter holidays.
“We saw patterns very similar to what was happening in the community,” says Dr. Helen Boucher, chief of infectious diseases at Tufts Medical Center, where about 600 employees have tested positive for COVID. Boucher said contact tracking indicates almost all of them contracted their infections outside of the hospital.
“Clusters arise when small groups of people come together, often in people’s homes, are wary and transfer takes place. … We are all human, and colleagues at work have attended these meetings, ”she said.
But officials recognize that infection clusters in hospitals occur all the time – ranging from two or three people in one unit testing positive to much larger outbreaks. An outbreak at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in September infected 57 people.
Lori Pannozzo, a nurse who cares for COVID patients in the intensive care unit at St. Vincent Hospital in Worcester, said she feels exposed because she has to reuse masks at work. She believes she was infected by a COVID patient who needed to be intubated quickly, a process that releases breath drops into the air.
Pannozzo coughed on New Year’s Eve hours before she was due to work in the ICU; she tested positive for COVID that day. She started to feel short of breath and developed pneumonia. She spent her 48th birthday sick on the couch at the Monson home she shares with her husband and son.
Weeks after testing positive, Pannozzo remained out of work and struggled to breathe while walking short distances.
“I’ve never really had any fear,” she said. ‘I got along with my patients a bit. Not being able to breathe is scary. “
Priyanka Dayal McCluskey can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @priyanka_dayal