Prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 infection in previously undiagnosed health care workers in New Jersey, at the onset of the U.S.
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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Open Access
Prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 infection in previously undiagnosed health care workers in New Jersey, at the onset of the U.S. COVID-19 pandemic Emily S. Barrett1,2†, Daniel B. Horton1,3,4†, Jason Roy1, Maria Laura Gennaro5, Andrew Brooks2,6, Jay Tischfield3,6, Patricia Greenberg1, Tracy Andrews1, Sugeet Jagpal7, Nancy Reilly8, Jeffrey L. Carson7*† , Martin J. Blaser7,9† and Reynold A. Panettieri Jr7,8†
Abstract Background: Healthcare workers (HCW) are presumed to be at increased risk of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection due to occupational exposure to infected patients. However, there has been little epidemiological research to assess these risks. Methods: We conducted a prospective cohort study of HCW (n = 546) and non-healthcare workers (NHCW; n = 283) with no known prior SARS-CoV-2 infection who were recruited from a large U.S. university and two affiliated university hospitals. In this cross-sectional analysis of data collected at baseline, we examined SARS-CoV-2 infection status (as determined by presence of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in oropharyngeal swabs) by healthcare worker status and role. Results: At baseline, 41 (5.0%) of the participants tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 infection, of whom 14 (34.2%) reported symptoms. The prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 infection was higher among HCW (7.3%) than in NHCW (0.4%), representing a 7.0% greater absolute risk (95% confidence interval for risk difference 4.7, 9.3%). The majority of infected HCW (62.5%) were nurses. Positive tests increased across the two weeks of cohort recruitment in line with rising confirmed cases in the hospitals and surrounding counties. Conclusions: Overall, our results demonstrate that HCW had a higher prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 infection than NHCW. Continued follow-up of this cohort will enable us to monitor infection rates and examine risk factors for transmission. Keywords: COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, Healthcare workers
* Correspondence: [email protected] † Emily S. Barrett and Daniel B. Horton are joint first authorship. † Jeffrey L. Carson, Martin J. Blaser and Reynold A. Panettieri, Jr. are joint senior authorship. 7 Department of Medicine, Division of General Internal Medicine, Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, 125 Paterson Street, New Brunswick, New Jersey 08901, USA Full list of author information is available at the end of the article © The Author(s). 2020 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use i
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