More health workers are getting COVID-19, but UTSW says they’re safer on the job than out and about

COVID-19 cases are spiking so it’s not surprising that more health care workers are being infected, too.

UT Southwestern Medical Center, a leader in academic medicine, has reported a sharp rise in coronavirus cases among its employees, including 59 new cases in the past two weeks. Four of the infections came from contact with patients, about the same number infected by patients over the previous 3.5 months.

But the vast majority of employee cases, over 84%, can be traced to the community, not the UT Southwestern campus. The overall infection rate among UTSW employees is also lower than the rate among the general population in Dallas County, where the health system is based.

That’s good news for workers and patients. Health workers are demonstrating how to safely navigate the pandemic by wearing the right protective equipment, keeping their distance when possible and being relentless about hand hygiene.

Other measures also help, including rapid testing and health screenings for everyone entering a building.

“When you’re engaging in all the correct practices, you stay safe,” said Dr. Seth Toomay, chief medical officer for UT Southwestern Health System. “Most of us [at UTSW] feel safer when we’re at work than when we’re out in the community.”

Especially when the virus is spreading rapidly. On Friday, Dallas County reported 1,085 new COVID-19 cases, four times more than a month earlier. Statewide, the number of new daily cases shot up even faster.

In June, the number of hospitalizations of COVID-19 patients increased almost fourfold in Texas to over 6,500. In such an environment, more people will catch the virus, including those working at hospitals.

“Our employees are members of the community and they interact with it,” Toomay said. “They go to the grocery store and they go out and about, and that makes them susceptible to community transmission.”

From March 1 through July 2, UT Southwestern reported that 121 employees contracted COVID-19. That’s a small fraction of its 18,000-plus employees, and a lower rate per 100,000 people than for Dallas County.

In addition, Toomay said he’s not aware of any patient who contracted COVID-19 while being treated for other conditions at UT Southwestern.

Most hospitals do not publicly report COVID-19 cases among employees, and UT Southwestern deserves credit for sharing the data. It separates cases by where the infection originated, and the vast majority stem from the community. A much smaller number came from interactions with employees or patients.

The infections are not necessarily concentrated among clinical workers, such as nurses and physicians. “It’s really across the board,” Toomay said.

Nationwide, over 90,000 doctors, nurses and other health care workers had contracted COVID-19 through July 2, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC reported 500 deaths of health workers.

Another source, the Kaiser Health Network and The Guardian, reported that 729 health workers likely died of COVID-19 after treating patients.

Support staff also get COVID-19 infections, said Sal Rosselli, president of the National Union of Healthcare Workers, whose 15,000 members are primarily in California. He said a housekeeper learned she had cleaned the room of a COVID patient several days after the fact; eventually, she and her family got the disease.

“The workplace is getting more dangerous because there are more patients,” said Rosselli, whose union is promoting a bill of rights for health care workers.

One early study on COVID-19 transmission found that health workers accounted for the largest share of infections among various work groups. The study by Harvard researchers looked at possible work-related infections in six Asian countries: Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.

While more health workers were infected than taxi drivers and retail clerks, their share of locally transmitted cases was much smaller, the researchers said. They said medical staffs were better prepared to deal with the disease because of training and equipment.

Hospitals also have learned many ways to reduce spread during the pandemic, said Dr. Paul Sax, clinical director in infectious diseases at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

Universal masking, which has been adopted by UT Southwestern, has proved to be very valuable. Health screenings for employees and mandatory COVID-19 testing of patients make a difference. Each bit of personal protective equipment, from N95 masks to eye shields, plays a part.

And putting it all together “ends up being quite effective in prevention,” Sax said. “The lesson is: You can be a health care worker during COVID-19 and not get the infection.”

Texas recently suspended elective surgeries again — this time in select counties, including Dallas. That’s designed to preserve equipment, bed capacity and medical workers for a surge in COVID cases.

Delays can be hard on patients, and many surgical practices took financial hits when procedures were shut down earlier.

“But it helped prevent the crisis from getting worse,” said Dr. David Hoyt, executive director of the American College of Surgeons in Chicago. “When a community looks like it could be overwhelmed, it’s the right thing to do.”

At UT Southwestern, medical leaders said they’ve been able to balance competing demands.

“Right now, we have ample capacity to take care of all the COVID patients coming in and patients with other illnesses,” Toomay said. “In North Texas, we’ve not really seen the surge that Houston and San Antonio have.”

Keeping the workforce healthy is crucial to the mission. UT Southwestern offers per diems so employees can stay in a hotel and shield their families from potential exposure. Community supporters have been buying meals and even groceries for health care workers. And employees have been vigilant about preventing transmission on campus.

But everybody needs to go further, said Dr. William Daniel, chief quality officer at UT Southwestern — especially on a holiday weekend when COVID cases are rising and many will be away from the job.

“Avoid large gatherings,” Daniel said. “We have limited gatherings on campus, and we should be limiting them in the community.”

What works in a health care setting works in the outside world, too.

Editor’s note: This story was updated Friday afternoon after UT Southwestern reported new employee cases for the week ended July 2.