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Temporal Trends in COVID-19 Incidence in Two Healthcare Worker Cohorts
James E McNicholas1, Robert Kosnik, Paul D Blanc
1Division of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, California (Dr McNicholas, Dr Kosnik, Dr Blanc, and Dr Guntur); Division of Occupational Medicine, San Francisco Veterans Affairs Health Care System, San Francisco, California (Dr McNicholas, Dr Blanc and Dr Guntur); Office of Population Health, UCSF Medical Center, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California (Dr Taylor).
Background:
Health care workers (HCWs) experience increased occupational risk of contracting COVID-19, with temporal trends that might inform surveillance.
Methods:
We analyzed data from a Veterans Affairs hospital-based COVID-19 worker telephone hotline collected over 40 weeks (2020). We calculated the proportion of COVID-19+ cases among persons-under-investigation (PUIs) for illness compared to rates from a nearby large university-based health care institution.
Results:
We observed 740 PUIs, 65 (8.8%) COVID-19+. Time trends were similar at the study and comparison hospitals; only for the first of 10 four-week observation periods was the ratio for observed to expected COVID-19+ significant (P < 0.001).
Discussion:
These data suggest that employee health COVID-19+ to PUI ratios could be utilized as a barometer of community trends. Pooling experience among heath care facilities may yield insights into occupational infectious disease outbreaks.
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