April 14, 2020 / By The Associated Press
Between 10 percent and 20 percent of U.S. coronavirus cases are health care workers, though they tended to be hospitalized at lower rates than other patients, officials reported Tuesday.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported the first national data on how the pandemic is hitting doctors, nurses and other health care professionals.
The data is important new information but not necessarily surprising, said Dr. Anne Schuchat, who is running the federal agency’s response to the outbreak. Medical staff have also been hit hard in other countries: Media reports said about 10 percent of cases in Italy and Spain were health care workers.
As of the middle of last week, the CDC had reports of more than 315,000 cases in the U.S. The new report focused on about 49,000 for which researchers had data on whether or not they worked in health care. About 9,300, or 19 percent, of them were medical professionals. That included 27 who died.
