Thousands of hospital workers sickened with COVID since start of pandemic - The Boston Globe

More than 14,000 health care workers at the state’s largest medical centers and hospital systems have been infected with COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic, according to data compiled by the Globe — a reflection of the toll of the pandemic on the essential health care workforce.

The couple and their children, ages 8 and 10, all tested positive for COVID.

To assess how many hospital workers contracted COVID, the Globe surveyed the state’s largest hospital systems and academic medical centers, including Mass General Brigham, Beth Israel Lahey, UMass Memorial, Baystate, Wellforce, Boston Medical Center, and Boston Children’s Hospital.

Mass General Brigham said more than 5,000 of its workers, or 6.6 percent, tested positive for COVID from the beginning of the pandemic through early February, while Beth Israel Lahey said more than 3,000, or 8.5 percent, had COVID.

At BMC, 11.8 percent of the workforce, or more than 1,000 people, tested positive for COVID in the same period.

Now, as more health care workers receive their vaccinations and community spread slows, the rate of new infections is dropping.

The state Department of Public Health doesn’t specifically report infections among the hospital workforce, but a 2020 law requires the department to track the occupations of people who test positive for COVID.

During the same period, 3,178 nursing, psychiatric, and home health aides tested positive, as did 499 physicians and 921 medical assistants.

The number of deaths is harder to pinpoint, although a project from The Guardian and Kaiser Health News counts 74 Massachusetts health care workers who have died from COVID.

Nationally, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that more than 408,000 health care workers have contracted COVID, and more than 1,400 have died.

She tested positive for COVID in mid-December, an infection she suspects she picked up in a hospital break room where employees remove their masks to eat and drink.

Hospital workers who test positive for COVID must stay home for at least 10 days.

At Baystate Health, for example, about 450 people were out of work in mid-December because they were sick with COVID or had been exposed to it.

Despite the large numbers of hospital workers who have contracted COVID, hospital officials contend that most were infected through community exposures, not during their shifts.

When they take care of COVID patients, front-line workers wear masks, eye protection, gowns, and gloves — which are largely effective at preventing infection when worn properly.

Shenoy, associate chief of infection control at Massachusetts General Hospital, where more than 2,000 employees tested positive for COVID over the past 11 months.

The number of health care workers infected with COVID peaked in April and again around the winter holidays.

Helen Boucher, chief of infectious diseases at Tufts Medical Center, where about 600 employees have tested positive for COVID.

Pannozzo was coughing on New Year’s Eve, hours before she was scheduled to work in the ICU; she tested positive for COVID that day