THE current wave coronavirus outbreak has led 512 medical personnel becoming infected in 57 provinces with one dentist who was suffering from an underlying disease succumbing to the disease, TV Channel 7 said this afternoon.
Dr. Taweesilp Visanuyothin, spokesman of Centre for Covid-19 Situation Administration (CCSA), said the majority of the 512 medical workers infected during April 1 and May 7 were nurses and nursing assistants, totaling 34%, with doctors added up to around 10%.
More female than male medical personnel caught Covid with the majority doing so in Bangkok, adding up to 137. Public hospitals accounted for 65% of the cases while private ones 29%.
Risk factors include infection within the hospital while touching or treating patients with 202 getting infected this way while 63 caught the disease by touching infected colleagues.
In addition 106 of them had got infected outside the hospital through contact with confirmed patients or visiting risky places while the cause of infection of 141 of them is still underway.
Dr Taweesilp urged patients and those at risk of getting infected to not hide information so that medical staff do not get infected and then be quarantined with this leading to the hospital shutting down.
He also revealed details about today’s 17 coronavirus fatalities with eight of them being male and nine female. The age range is between 34-99 years. Eight of the deaths took place in Bangkok, three in Samut Prakan and one each in Pathum Thani, Samut Sakhon, Surat Thani, Songkhla, Phrae and Chainat.
Most of those who died had underlying conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, high blood cholesterol level, chronic lung disease and obesity. Most of the infection occurred through close contact with family members, touching a colleague, through joining a gambling session or eating together.
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Top: Lt. Youngmi Kim, an internal medicine resident assigned to Naval Medical Center San Diego’s (NMCSD) Intensive Care Unit (ICU), dons personal protective equipment before a procedure there. Photo: Navy Medicine
Home Page: Medical staff wheel a patient to a high speed train at the Gare d’Austerlitz train station in Paris on April 1, 2020 to be evacuated to other hospitals in western France. Photo: Thomas Samson/AFP via Getty Images and published by CNN
