[Time in first-level respiratory areas: risk for SARS-CoV-2 infection?]

The pandemic caused by COVID-19 is one of the main problems of public health around the world. Of the individuals with infection, a large amount corresponds to first-level health workers.

To determine the relationship between length of stay in respiratory offices and SARS-CoV-2 infection in health workers at a first-level health center.

Cross-sectional analytic study in health workers of a first-level unit of San Luis Potosí, Mexico, who developed suspected symptomatology of SARS-CoV-2 infection from March 2020 to January 2021. Two groups were formed according to the result of the RT-PCR. Demographic variables, occupation, work area, work in respiratory area, hours of work accumulated within the respiratory area to develop symptomatology, and date of development of symptomatology were registered.

Of 350 health workers active, 144 developed respiratory symptomatology; of these, 66 had positive RT-PCR for SARS-CoV-2 infection. Working in an area with no respiratory patients but in contact with other patients confers an OR 2.49 (1.04-6.26), when compared with working in a respiratory area, p 0.0446. The length in a filter for respiratory patients gives a protective OR of 0.3062 (0.08-0.99) for developing SARS-CoV-2 infection, p 0.0608. Each hour accumulated in a respiratory area confers an OR 1.001 (0.99-1.00) without statistical significance, p 0.3046.

Working in a respiratory area and the accumulated hours of work in this place are not risk factors for developing COVID-19 in health workers.