‘Almost half of healthcare workers had covid-19’ at some hospitals

Sir Paul Nurse, director of the Francis Crick Institute, told MPs today that covid-19 had infected up to 45 per cent of healthcare workers during ”the height of the pandemic” at some hospitals, according to the centre’s research.

Chief medical officer Chris Whitty also told the Health and Social Care Committee that there was more evidence that covid-19 was transmitted between staff, rather than from patients to staff, and there was “just as much risk as people being in their break rooms than on wards”.

Sir Paul told MPs the Francis Crick Institute contacted Downing Street in March and wrote to health secretary Matt Hancock in April to emphasise the importance of regular systematic testing for all healthcare workers as it was “quite clear” that those without symptoms were likely to be transmitting the disease.

He said hospital staff “were infecting their colleagues, they were infecting their patients, yet they were not being tested systematically.”

Research from the Institute also showed that nearly 50 per cent of healthcare workers at that time were infected but had no symptoms.

He told the committee: “This was a real major failure. In the healthcare environment we weren’t providing proper protection.”

Professor Whitty told the committee testing capacity has had to be built from a “standing start,” and earlier in the pandemic had to be prioritised for hospital patients. He said regular testing among asymptomatic healthcare staff will be needed before winter.

He added there is “reasonable evidence” that much of the transmission of covid-19 within hospitals “was from care staff and health staff to one another, and equally patients to one another, but less between patients and healthcare staff.”

“There is just as much risk as people being in their break room as there is being on the wards.”

Meanwhile, Jonathan Van-Tam, deputy chief medical Officer for England, told the committee he was “cautiously optimistic” of an effective vaccine before Christmas.

It came amid warnings from Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust and SAGE member, that “humanity will be living with this virus for decades to come”.