Update: Characteristics of Health Care Personnel with COVID-19 — United States, February 12–July 16, 2020
Michelle M. Hughes, Matthew R. Groenewold, Sarah E. Lessem, Kerui Xu, Emily N. Ussery, Ryan E. Wiegand, Xiaoting Qin, Tuyen Do, Deepam Thomas, Stella Chin‐Shaw Tsai, Alexander Davidson, Julia Latash, Seth Eckel, Jim Collins, Mojisola Ojo, Lisa McHugh, Wenhui Li, Judy Chen, Jonathan P. Chan, Jonathan M. Wortham, Sarah Reagan-Steiner, James T. Lee, Sujan Reddy, David T. Kuhar, Sherry Burrer, Matthew J. Stuckey
Abstract
As of September 21, 2020, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic had resulted in 6,786,352 cases and 199,024 deaths in the United States.* Health care personnel (HCP) are essential workers at risk for exposure to patients or infectious materials (1). The impact of COVID-19 on U.S. HCP was first described using national case surveillance data in April 2020 (2). Since then, the number of reported HCP with COVID-19 has increased tenfold. This update describes demographic characteristics, underlying medical conditions, hospitalizations, and intensive care unit (ICU) admissions, stratified by vital status, among 100,570 HCP with COVID-19 reported to CDC during February 12-July 16, 2020. HCP occupation type and job setting are newly reported. HCP status was available for 571,708 (22%) of 2,633,585 cases reported to CDC. Most HCP with COVID-19 were female (79%), aged 16-44 years (57%), not hospitalized (92%), and lacked all 10 underlying medical conditions specified on the case report form (56%). Of HCP with COVID-19, 641 died. Compared with nonfatal COVID-19 HCP cases, a higher percentage of fatal cases occurred in males (38% versus 22%), persons aged 65 years (44% versus 4%), non-Hispanic Asians (Asians) (20% versus 9%), non-Hispanic Blacks (Blacks) (32% versus 25%), and persons with any of the 10 underlying medical conditions specified on the case report form (92% versus 41%). From a subset of jurisdictions reporting occupation type or job setting for HCP with COVID-19, nurses were the most frequently identified single occupation type (30%), and nursing and residential care facilities were the most common job setting (67%). Ensuring access to personal protective equipment (PPE) and training, and practices such as universal use of face masks at work, wearing masks in the community, * https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/cases-in-us.html; https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/faq-surveillance.html; https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/php/reporting-pui.html. Underlying medical condition status was classified as "known" if any of these 10 conditions, specified on the standard case report form, were reported as present or absent: diabetes mellitus; cardiovascular disease (includes hypertension); severe obesity (body mass index 40 kg/m 2 ); chronic renal disease; chronic liver disease; chronic lung disease; immunosuppressive condition; autoimmune condition; neurologic condition (including neurodevelopmental, intellectual, physical, visual, or health impairment); and psychologic/psychiatric condition.