Protecting our health care workers while protecting our communities during the COVID-19 pandemic: a comparison of approaches and early outcomes in two Italian regions, Italy, 2020

Nancy Binkin; Stefania Salmaso; Federica Michieletto; Francesca Russo

Nosocomial transmission appears to have played a role in transmission in Lombardy (16) . Efforts to keep COVID-19 patients away from health care facilities during diagnosis and provide home follow up for patients wherever possible appear to have reduced HCW risk of infection. In Veneto, where only a quarter of diagnosed cases were hospitalized, less than 5% of cases were in HCWs. In Lombardy, where over half of diagnosed cases were hospitalized, the corresponding value was 14%. The rate of infection in HCWs in Veneto was almost four times higher than the remainder of the population, clearly suggesting that nosocomial transmission was occurring, but was far lower than in Lombardy, where HCWs were 19 times more likely to be infected than the general population.