Medical Crisis: At least 500 Wuhan medical staff are infected with the coronavirus

How many medical bodies can China throw at this crisis? At least 500 hospital staff in Wuhan had been infected with the deadly new strain of coronavirus by mid-January, multiple medical sources have confirmed, leaving hospitals short-staffed and causing deep concern among health care workers. While the government has reported individual cases of health care workers becoming infected, it has not provided the full picture, and the sources said doctors and nurses had been told not to make the total public. The reason for this edict was not explained, but the authorities have been trying to boost morale among front-line medical staff, especially following the death of Li Wenliang, who was killed by the disease weeks after being reprimanded by police for warning colleagues about the new virus. A slide circulating online, however, reveals the scale of infections among medical workers in Wuhan.

It said that by mid-January there had been about 500 confirmed cases among hospital staff with a further 600 suspected ones. A source from a major hospital in Wuhan with knowledge of the situation confirmed that the slide was authentic. The figures shown on the slide were also in line with the figures given by two other doctors from major hospitals in Wuhan. Those infected included at least 100 staff from both Wuhan Xiehe Hospital and Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University, with a further 50 cases each from Wuhan Number 1 Hospital and Zhongnan Hospital. A research paper published by doctors from Zhongnan Hospital in The Journal of the American Medical Association last Friday said at least 40 medical workers had been infected.

Apart from hampering the capacity of hospitals to contain the outbreak and treat patients, medical specialists said the rate of infections among frontline staff was an important indicator of how easily the disease, which has killed more than 1,000 people, could be transmitted and the risks of contracting the virus in hospital. A doctor from a major hospital in Wuhan, who requested anonymity, said the development had hit morale, adding that many medical workers were “devastated” when they saw the CAT scans of colleagues who had been infected. – Yahoo