A COVID-19 Infection Risk Model for Frontline Health Care Workers

Louie Florendo Dy; Jomar Fajardo Rabajante

According to our simulation results, the expected number of infected frontliners increases as the average number of encounters between the frontliner and COVID-19 patients increases as well as when work shift duration or exposure time increases ( Figure 1A & 1B) . If there is highly interacting population (e.g., the average number of encounters per hour is 120, which means that the frontliners and the patients are interacting every 30 seconds) or a series of long interactions (e.g., 4 patient interviews per hour where each interview takes 15 minutes), then there is a high chance that one person will be infected. If there is low interaction rate (e.g., seeing one patient only for less than or equal to 30 seconds once per hour), then the chance of getting infected is low but the risk is not zero.