• Lichun Zheng, Xiang Wang, Chongchong Zhou, Qin Liu, Shuang Li, Qin Sun, Mengjia Wang, Qian Zhou, and Wenmei Wang.
• Department of Oral Medicine, Nanjing Stomatological Hospital, Medical School of Nanjing University, Nanjing, China.
• Clin. Infect. Dis. 2020 Nov 19; 71 (16): 2109-2113.

BackgroundHealthcare workers (HCWs) at the frontline are facing a substantial risk of infection during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak.MethodsWe acquired information and data on general information on and infection and death status of HCWs in Wuhan during the COVID-19 outbreak and completed statistical analyses.ResultsWe obtained the data on 2457 infected cases among HCWs in Wuhan, China. More than half of the infected individuals were nurses (52.06%), whereas 33.62% of infected cases were doctors and 14.33% of cases were medical staff. In particular, the case infection rate of nurses (2.22%) was remarkably higher than that of doctors (1.92%). Most infected cases among HCWs were female (72.28%). A majority of the infected HCWs (89.26%) came from general hospitals, followed by specialized hospitals (5.70%) and community hospitals (5.05%). The case infection rate of HCWs (2.10%) was dramatically higher than that of non-HCWs (0.43%). The case fatality rate of HCWs (0.69%) was significantly lower than that of non-HCWs (5.30%).ConclusionsThe infection risk of HCWs is clearly higher than that of non-HCWs. HCWs play an essential role in fighting the pandemic. The analysis of the infection status of HCWs is essential to attract enough attention from the public, provide effective suggestions for government agencies, and improve protective measures for HCWs.© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press for the Infectious Diseases Society of America.

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