Abstract
BACKGROUND: Health care workers (HCWs) experience increased occupational risk of contracting COVID-19, with temporal trends that might inform surveillance. METHODS: We analyzed data from a Veterans Affairs hospital-based COVID-19 worker telephone hotline collected over 40 weeks (2020). We calculated the proportion of COVID-19+ cases among persons-under-investigation (PUIs) for illness compared to rates from a nearby large university-based health care institution. RESULTS: We observed 740 PUIs, 65 (8.8%) COVID-19+. Time trends were similar at the study and comparison hospitals; only for the first of 10 four-week observation periods was the ratio for observed to expected COVID-19+ significant (P < 0.001). DISCUSSION: These data suggest that employee health COVID-19+ to PUI ratios could be utilized as a barometer of community trends. Pooling experience among heath care facilities may yield insights into occupational infectious disease outbreaks.