Friday June 11, 2021 | VICTORIA, BC
by Mary P Brooke, B.Sc., Editor | Island Social Trends
As British Columbia sets upon economic and social restart, it’s important to note that health-care workers have borne a heavy burden in keeping everyone safe.
Not only just burnout on the job from long hours during a 15-month pandemic and worrying about taking COVID-19 home to their families, but contracting the COVID-19 viral infection while doing that work.
Almost 8,000 health-care workers infected:
According to the BC Centre for Disease Control (BC CDC) about 5.7% of all COVID infections in BC have been among health-care workers, numbering to 7,964 in total. That was during the period from January 2020 to May 21, 2021. And it could be even more, as not all respondents (test-positive cases that were lab confirmed, lab probable or epi-linked) identified their occupation.
The most cases of COVID-19 infection among those who identified as health-care workers were seen among care aides (1,702 workers or 21.4%) and nurses (1,301 workers or 16.3%).
But also there were infections among health-care workers in these roles (in descending order by percentage): administration, LPNs, housekeeping staff, dentists and dental assistants, kitchen staff and dietary workers, physicians, lab techs, occupational therapists, physiotherapists and respiratory technicians, community health-care workers, students, pharmacists, and others. See full list (as of May 21, 2021) on the BC CDC website.
For the record, note that the BC CDC in this report says there were 140,847 total COVID cases in BC as of May 21, 2021. But the numbers provided to media on May 21, 2021 showed 141,373 total COVID cases in BC (4,990 of those in the Vancouver Island region).
Yes, it should be noted that among health-care workers perhaps not all infections among that sectors were acquired on the job (they could have contacted someone in the community who was infected). But given they were working in a COVID-infection environment, the probability is high that most health-care worker infections were acquired while on the job.
The health-care worker COVID tally is issued monthly around the middle of the month, so the mid-June report is expected soon.
