The staggering toll of Covid-19 on health care workers

[mahatmakanejeeves]

This is from April 2021.

APRIL 14, 2021

The staggering toll of Covid-19 on health care workers

Daily Briefing

As calls mount for the federal government to track Covid-19 deaths among health care workers, an investigation by The Guardian and Kaiser Health News has found that more than 3,600 American health care workers died in the first year of the Covid-19 epidemic.

The investigation, called Lost on the Frontline, monitored who among the health care workforce died—and why—to provide a "window into the workings…of the U.S. health system during the Covid-19 pandemic, KHN reports. The project, which launched April 2020, ends this month after a full year in operation.

Among other findings, the project found that:

• People of color were significantly more likely to die during the pandemic than white health care workers. Overall, two-thirds of the people identified as having died from Covid-19 were people of color, and more than a third of health care workers who died were born outside of the United States, including a disproportionally high number of workers from the Philippines.

• Lower-paid workers and those who handled patient care, such as nurses and support staff members, were significantly more likely to die during the pandemic than physicians.

• More than 50% of those who died were younger than 60, and the median age of death was 59. In comparison, the median age of death from Covid-19 among the general population is 78.

• Twice as many health care providers who worked in nursing homes died as did workers in hospitals. Overall, just 30% of the deaths were among health care workers at hospitals, and very few were among workers at well-funded academic medical centers, the investigation found.

{snip}

(Spencer/Jewett, The Guardian/Kaiser Health News, 4/8; Pilkington, The Guardian/Kaiser Health News, 4/8).