The figures are disproportionate: Data collected by the WHO suggests that health workers represent less than 3 percent of the population in the majority of countries and less than 2 percent in almost all low- and middle-income countries.

But the WHO’s data, released to mark World Patient Safety Day on Thursday, fits with other estimates. In April, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that health-care workers accounted for 11 percent to 16 percent of covid-19 cases during the first surge of infections in the United States.

One contributing factor to the high infection rate could be greater levels of testing among health-care workers, who are often prioritized when testing supplies are scarce — which could suggest broader prevalence of covid-19 in under-tested communities.

“There likely is a bias in the data when you see health-care workers that highly represented,” said Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security. “It underscores the fact that we still have testing problems six months into the pandemic.”

…continued .
[Source: Washington Post]