90,000 health care workers have coronavirus, nurses say — 4 times an official count

More than 90,000 health care workers have been infected with coronavirus — a number significantly larger than what the World Health Organization last reported, according to the International Council of Nurses.

At least 260 nurses have died from the virus, according to a news release from the ICN, a group that represents more than 20 million nurses worldwide.

The WHO said on April 11 that more than 22,000 health care workers have been infected, according to Reuters. The agency added that countries are not providing complete information on health care worker infections, according to Reuters.

Howard Catton, ICN’s CEO, said ”the lack of official data” put out by governments about health care worker infections is “scandalous.”

“We have seen infection rates and, tragically, deaths rise on a daily basis,” Catton said in a statement. “Governments’ failure to collect this information in a consistent way means we do not have the data that would add to the science that could improve infection control and prevention measures and save the lives of other health care workers.”

Based on data through April 9, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 9,282 coronavirus cases among health care workers in the United States. The CDC has not updated those figures.

ICN gathered its information through national nursing associations’ data, and it suggests a much higher worldwide number than what global health officials reported last month, the council said in the release Wednesday.

Catton said the number of health care who could die from COVID-19 may eventually be in the thousands. He called upon national governments to keep accurate records of infections and deaths.

“If governments do not count the number of nurses who have lost lives, if they continue to turn a blind eye, it sends a message that those nurses’ lives didn’t count,” Catton said in a statement. “Having this data will help to focus the minds of government ministers and officials on what matters most: saving people’s lives.”

This story was originally published May 6, 2020 at 12:09 PM with the headline "90,000 health care workers have coronavirus, nurses say — 4 times an official count."