Twelve months of trauma: more than 3,600 U.S. health workers died in Covid’s first year
More than 3,600 US healthcare workers died in the first year of the pandemic according to Lost on the Frontline, a 12-month investigation by the Guardian and Kaiser Health News (KHN) to track such deaths.
Lost on the Frontline is the most complete accounting of US healthcare worker deaths. The federal government has not comprehensively tracked this data. But calls are mounting for the Biden administration to undertake a count as the Guardian/KHN project comes to a close today. The project, which tracked who died and why, provides a window into the workings – and failings – of the US healthcare system during the pandemic. One key finding: two thirds of deceased healthcare workers for whom we have data identified as people of color, revealing the deep inequities tied to race, ethnicity and economic status in America’s healthcare workforce. Lower-paid workers who handled everyday patient care, including nurses, support staff, and nursing home employees, were far more likely to die in the pandemic than physicians.
The year-long series of investigative reports found that many of these deaths could have been prevented. Widespread PPE and mask shortages, a lack of Covid testing, weak contact tracing, inconsistent mask guidance by politicians, missteps by employers, and lax enforcement of workplace safety rules by government regulators all contributed to the increased risk faced by healthcare workers. Studies show that healthcare workers were more than 3 times as likely to contract Covid as the general public. [Continue reading…]