California, Jan. 11 (BUS): Health authorities across the United States are increasingly taking the unusual step of allowing nurses and other workers infected with the coronavirus to stay at work if they have mild symptoms or no symptoms at all.
The Associated Press (AP) reported that the move is a reaction to the hospital’s severe staff shortages and massive workloads caused by the omicron variant.
California health authorities announced over the weekend that hospital staff who tested positive but did not show symptoms can continue to work. Similarly, some hospitals in Rhode Island and Arizona have told employees that they can stay at work if they are asymptomatic or have only mild symptoms.
The highly contagious omicron variant sent new cases of COVID-19 to more than 700,000 cases per day in the United States on average, obliterating the record set a year ago. The number of Americans with the virus in hospital is about 110,000, just below the peak of 124,000 last January.
Many hospitals are not only overcrowded with cases, but also severely shortened due to many employees leaving with COVID-19.
At the same time, omicron appears to cause milder disease than the delta variant.
Last month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that asymptomatic health care workers can return to work after seven days with a negative test, but the isolation time could be shortened further if there is a staff shortage.
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France announced last week that it was allowing health care workers with mild or no symptoms to continue treating patients rather than isolate them.
In the Phoenix area, Dignity Health, a major hospital operator, sent a note to employees saying that people with the virus who feel healthy enough to work may request permission from their managers to return to patient care.
Dignity Health Hospitals in California has not yet implemented the new guidelines, but said they may need to do so in the coming days and weeks.
“We are doing everything we can to ensure our employees can safely return to work while protecting our patients and staff from transmission of COVID-19,” Dignity Health said in a statement.
In California, the Department of Public Health said the new policy was prompted by an “extreme staff shortage.” It asked hospitals to make every attempt to fill vacancies by bringing in staff from outside recruitment agencies.
The department also said, infected workers will be required to wear ultra-protective N95 masks and must be assigned to treat other patients with COVID-19.
“We did not ask for this guidance, and we have no information on whether or not hospitals will adopt this approach,” said Jan Emerson Shea, a spokesperson for the California Hospital Association.
“But what we do know is that hospitals are expecting more patients in the coming days than they will be able to care for them with current resources.”
Emerson Shea said many hospital staff have been exposed to the virus, and they are either sick or caring for infected family members.
The 100,000-member California Nurses Association opposed the decision and warned it would lead to more infections.
Governor Gavin Newsom and other state health leaders are “putting the needs of health care companies before the safety of patients and workers,” the association’s president, Kathy Kennedy, said in a statement. “We want to take care of our patients and see them improve – less likely to infect them.”
Earlier this month in Rhode Island, a psychiatric hospital and rehabilitation center allowed employees who tested positive for COVID-19 but did not show symptoms to work.
At Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, Chief Medical Officer Dr. Hani Atallah said they had not yet reached their breaking point and that workers who tested positive were staying away for five days. “We still have to be very careful to prevent the disease from spreading in the hospital,” he said.
Kevin Chu Tipton, a nurse at Jackson Memorial, said he understands why hospitals are so eager to get staff back after five days of isolation. However, he is concerned about the potential risks, especially for patients at high risk of infection, such as those receiving transplants.
“Yes, Omicron is less lethal, but we still don’t know much,” he said.
MI