Increased Risk of COVID-19-Related Deaths among General Practitioners in Italy

Abstract

To date, data on COVID-19-related death cases among physicians from different medical specialties are incomplete and scattered. In Italy, available data highlight that general practitioners (GPs) are, apparently, the most heavily affected group. Indeed, they currently represent 44.1% of the total COVID-19 related death cases occurred among physicians, whereas they constitute about 15% of the total number of doctors. This high proportion is most likely the consequence of a work-related contagion happening especially during the first weeks of the epidemic, and persisting also in the following weeks, after the national lockdown. There are various reasons for these higher contagion rates: GPs perform a lot of medical examinations daily, usually in close contact with patients. Especially at the beginning of the epidemic, GPs might have had scant information on the specific safety procedures for the prevention of SARS-CoV-2 transmission (e.g., there was limited knowledge on the possibility of contagions deriving from asymptomatic patients) and, moreover, the availability of personal protective equipment was insufficient. Furthermore, the risk of infection is highly increased by the virus' characteristics, like its survival for several hours/days on different surfaces and its persistence in the air after an aerosolization process, with possibilities to be transmitted over distances longer than two meters. Following these observations, and considering the high cost in term of GPs' lives, the COVID-19 pandemic will probably revolutionize the approach to patients in general practice. Clear and effective guidelines are absolutely and urgently needed for the refinement of adequate measures to prevent SARS-CoV-2 infections among GPs.

Keywords: general practitioners; novel coronavirus; occupational medicine.

Figure 1

Percentages of physicians grouped according to their medical specialty among the 118 COVID-19-related death cases occurred in Italy between March and April 2020.

Figure 2

Daily cumulative increase of COVID-19-related-death cases among Italian physicians since the first reported death on the 11 March 2020 and up to the 30 April 2020.