Healthcare-acquired coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is less symptomatic than community-acquired disease among healthcare workers.
Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol
; 43(4): 490-496, 2022 04.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1442664
ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE:
We hypothesized that healthcare workers (HCWs) with high-risk exposures outside the healthcare system would have less asymptomatic coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) disease and more symptoms than those without such exposures.DESIGN:
A longitudinal point prevalence study was conducted during August 17-September 4, 2020 (period 1) and during December 2-23, 2020 (period 2).SETTING:
Community based teaching health system.PARTICIPANTS:
All HCWs were invited to participate. Among HCWs who acquired COVID-19, logistic regression models were used to evaluate the adjusted odds of asymptomatic disease using high-risk exposure outside the healthcare system as the explanatory variable. The number of symptoms between exposure groups was evaluated with the Wilcoxon rank-sum test. The risk of seropositivity among all HCS by work exposure was evaluated during both periods.INTERVENTIONS:
Survey and serological testing.RESULT:
Seroprevalence increased from 1.9% (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.2%-2.6%) to 13.7% (95% CI, 11.9%-15.5%) during the study. Only during period 2 did HCWs with the highest work exposure (versus low exposure) have an increased risk of seropositivity (risk difference [RD], 7%; 95% CI, 1%-13%). Participants who had a high-risk exposure outside of work (compared to those without) had a decreased probability of asymptomatic disease (odds ratio [OR], 0.38; 95% CI, 0.16-0.86) and demonstrated more symptoms (median 3 [IQR, 2-6] vs 1 [IQR, 0-4]; P = .001).CONCLUSIONS:
Healthcare-acquired COVID-19 increases the probability of asymptomatic or mild COVID-19 disease compared to community-acquired disease. This finding suggests that infection prevention strategies (including masks and eye protection) may be mitigating inoculum and supports the variolation theory in COVID-19.
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
COVID-19
Type of study:
Experimental Studies
/
Observational study
/
Prognostic study
/
Randomized controlled trials
Limits:
Humans
Language:
English
Journal:
Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol
Journal subject:
Communicable Diseases
/
Nursing
/
Epidemiology
/
Hospitals
Year:
2022
Document Type:
Article
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