(Photo: The Good Brigade/Getty Images Plus)
Healthcare workers who developed COVID-19 and had at least one underlying medical condition missed more days of work than those who had the flu, or a SARS-CoV-2 infection without symptoms, according to findings from a recent study.
The study was published March 28 in the American Journal of Infection Control. A team from the National Public Health Organization in Athens, Greece, analyzed work absences for COVID-19 or flu among 5,871 healthcare workers during the 2023-24 respiratory virus season (from November to May).
There were a total of 759 missed-work episodes documented during the study period. On average, workers were out for about 4.5 days on average over the course of 3,434 days. Among the healthcare workers, 8.6% were diagnosed with COVID-19, 0.2% had asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infections and 1.5% had influenza.
Healthcare workers who had symptomatic COVID-19 and one or more chronic conditions missed 1.76 days more on average compared to colleagues who didn’t have COVID-19 infection or an underlying illness. Those with asymptomatic COVID-19 and one or more chronic conditions missed 0.25 more days of work compared to those without COVID-19 or underlying illness.
Among the absences, 66.8% were due to COVID-19, 11.6% were from flu and 1.3% were attributed to asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2. Together, COVID-19 and flu accounted for 76.5% and 9.7% of total days missed, respectively. The scientists published earlier, similar work on 5,752 hospital-based health workers with 734 documented cases of flu and COVID-19 during the 2022-2023 respiratory virus season.
Researchers estimated 4,245 days missed among workers with COVID-19 compared with 333 from the flu. The average absence per COVID-19 case was 5.8 days long. That compares with 3.6 days for flu. Healthcare workers with COVID-19 recorded an average of 1.91 more days out of work than those with the flu.