Incidence of Health Care-Associated COVID-19 During Universal Testing of Medical and Surgical Admissions in a Large US Health System

Open Forum Infect Dis. 2020 Sep 14;7(10):ofaa435. doi: 10.1093/ofid/ofaa435. eCollection 2020 Oct.

Abstract

Concerns about severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 exposure in health care settings may cause patients to delay care. Among 2992 patients testing negative on admission to an academic, 3-hospital system, 8 tested positive during hospitalization or within 14 days postdischarge. Following adjudication of each instance, health care-associated infection incidence ranged from 0.8 to 5.0 cases per 10 000 patient-days.

Keywords: COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2; emerging infections; hospital epidemiology; nosocomial infection.