Geo temporal distribution of 1,688 Chinese healthcare workers infected with COVID-19 in severe conditions, a secondary data analysis

Wayne Gao; Mattia Sanna; Chi Pang Wen

The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not peer-reviewed) is the . https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.03.19.20032532 doi: medRxiv preprint 10-day periods (as they occur over longer periods) and across the three locations taken into account. The transmission control was improper and co-infections were common during the initial period of the outbreak in Wuhan. One recent study found a correlation between the higher CFR in Wuhan with the higher healthcare burden compared with other provinces in China 10 . It is unthinkable that sickening citizens, infected or not, and family members were confined in a city lockdown with an overwhelmed medical system and that they were forbidden from going to other provinces to seek for better care to save their lives. This also inevitably created logistical as well as psychological impact on healthcare workers operating in those harsh environments, described in a call for international assistance by Chinese medical workers, as "nurses' mouths are covered in blisters and some nurses have fainted due to hypoglycaemia and hypoxia 11 . Sixty-three percent of the infected healthcare workers have been in Wuhan, including the 5 who died as a result of the infection 9 . However, the 0.3% CFR for the 1,688 medical workers (who were mainly aged less than 60 years as indicated in the report 8 ), may represent a proper estimation of the severity of COVID-19 in this age group in countries with universal access to quality medical services. Our study has a few limitations: There may be infected healthcare workers who still have not completed their natural progression of the disease with definite outcomes. However, as of February 28, no additional deaths of All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission.