More than a third of healthcare workers hospitalized with COVID-19 from March to May were in nursing-related positions, representing the highest proportion of healthcare workers in the hospital with the illness, according to a new CDC analysis.
Healthcare workers accounted for about 6 percent of adults hospitalized with COVID-19 from March through May, according to the analysis of hospitalization data, and 36.3 percent of those hospitalized healthcare workers were nurses or certified nursing assistants.
The analysis, which examined 6,760 hospitalizations across 13 states, including New York, Ohio and California, also found nearly 90 percent of healthcare workers hospitalized with COVID-19 from March through May had at least one underlying medical condition, such as obesity. About 28 percent were admitted to an intensive care unit, 15.8 percent required invasive mechanical ventilation and 4.2 percent died during hospitalization.
Healthcare workers "can have severe COVID-19-associated illness, highlighting the need for continued infection prevention and control in healthcare settings as well as community mitigation efforts to reduce transmission," the CDC said.
The analysis does not indicate whether healthcare workers were exposed to COVID-19 in the workplace or community, and the CDC noted findings could represent an overestimate or underestimate of the proportion of healthcare workers among all adults hospitalized with COVID-19 from March through May, due to limited data. But the agency said it shows the need for community prevention efforts and infection prevention and control measures at healthcare sites.
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