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| "Lost on the Frontline" is the first attempt to account for the U.S. deaths of health care workers. |
A new report confirms what the AAPI community has been saying for almost a year. Of the 3,600 known deaths of healthcare workers in the United States, a disproportionate number of Asian American and Black frontliners.
The report found "more than a third of the healthcare workers who died were born outside the United States. Those from the Philippines accounted for a disproportionate number of deaths.”
The report, Lost on the Frontline, is the result of a 12-month joint investigation by Kaiser Health News and The Guardian.
“We rightfully refer to these people without hyperbole – that they are true heroes and heroines,” said Dr Anthony Fauci in an exclusive interview with the Guardian and KHN. The Covid deaths of so many health workers are “a reflection of what healthcare workers have done historically, putting themselves in harm’s way, by living up to the oath they take when they become physicians and nurses,” he said.
Key findings of the report, include:
- More than half of those who died were younger than 60. In the general population, the median age of death from Covid-19 is 78. Yet among healthcare workers in our database, it is only 59.
- More than a third of the healthcare workers who died were born outside the United States. Those from the Philippines accounted for a disproportionate number of deaths.
- Nurses and support staff died in far higher numbers than physicians.
- Twice as many workers died in nursing homes as hospitals. Only 30% of deaths were among hospital workers, and relatively few were employed by well-funded academic medical centers. The rest worked in less-prestigious residential facilities, outpatient clinics, hospices and prisons, among other places.
The Kaiser and The Guardian report is the first attempt at a comprehensive accounting of U.S. health care workers’ deaths. Even the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has counted only 368 COVID deaths among health care workers, a vast undercount. The CDC talley is just a number and doesn't identify individuals.
Health policy experts and union leaders are pressing the White House to move quickly to fill the gaping hole left by the Trump administration through its failure to create an accurate count of Covid deaths among frontline staff. The absence of reliable federal data exacerbated critical problems such as shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE) that left many workers exposed, with fatal results.
In the absence of federal action, "Lost on the Frontline" has compiled the most comprehensive account of healthcare worker deaths in the nation. It has recorded 3,607 lost lives in the first year of the pandemic, with nurses, healthcare support staff and doctors, as well as workers under 60 and people of color affected in tragically high numbers.
The Guardian and KHN are building an interactive, public-facing database that will also track factors such as race and ethnicity, age, profession, location and whether the workers had adequate access to protective gear. The database — to be released this summer — will offer insight into the workings and failings of the U.S. health care system during the pandemic.
In the absence of federal action, "Lost on the Frontline" has compiled the most comprehensive account of healthcare worker deaths in the nation. It has recorded 3,607 lost lives in the first year of the pandemic, with nurses, healthcare support staff and doctors, as well as workers under 60 and people of color affected in tragically high numbers.
The Guardian and KHN are building an interactive, public-facing database that will also track factors such as race and ethnicity, age, profession, location and whether the workers had adequate access to protective gear. The database — to be released this summer — will offer insight into the workings and failings of the U.S. health care system during the pandemic.
Filipino American RN, Zenei Triunfo-Cortez, a president of National Nurses United, the largest body of registered nurses in the US, said it was unconscionable how many healthcare workers have died from Covid. The KHN/Guardian interactive found that almost a third of those who died were nurses – the largest single occupation followed by support staff (20%) and physicians (17%).
Triunfo-Cortez said the death toll was an unacceptable tragedy aggravated by the lack of federal data which made identifying problem areas more difficult. “We as nurses do not deserve this – we signed up to take care of patients, we did not sign up to die,” she said.
Triunfo-Cortez said the death toll was an unacceptable tragedy aggravated by the lack of federal data which made identifying problem areas more difficult. “We as nurses do not deserve this – we signed up to take care of patients, we did not sign up to die,” she said.
The lack of federal intelligence on deaths among frontline healthcare workers was one of the running failures of the Trump administration’s botched response to the crisis. The main health protection agency, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, does curate some information but has itself acknowledged that its own record of 1,527 health worker fatalities – more than 2,000 fewer than the joint Guardian/KHN tally – is an undercount based on limitations in its data collection.
Earlier limited attempts by nurses' organizations like National Nurses United have counted the number of registered nurses only; and a dedicated team of volunteers have launched Kanlungan, a website tallying deaths of Filipino health care workers around the world.
“We certainly want to find an accurate count of the people who die,” said Fauci, without noting when the government should undertake such an effort. “Certainly, that’s something I think would fall under the auspices of the federal government.”
Overall, healthcare workers were revealed to be singularly at risk from the pandemic. Some studies have shown that they were more than three times as likely to contract Covid as the general population.
“During the critical times when there were shortages was when people had to use whatever was available to them,” said Fauci. “I’m sure that increased the risk of getting infected among healthcare providers.”
Shortages were compounded by the federal government’s failure to maintain a national stockpile of personal protective equipment, and the Trump administration’s refusal to order more domestic manufacturing of PPE. That left health workers to use trash bags as gowns, to reuse N95s for weeks, and at times go totally without gloves.
"LOST ON THE FRONTLINES"
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READ the first 100 profiles here.
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The shortages led to health worker protests, who said working amid the pandemic without equipment left them like “sheep going to slaughter”. Nina Forbes, a nurse at an assisted living facility, was forced to wear a trashbag at times, according to her daughter, and later died. A year into the pandemic, gowns and gloves remain in short supply, according to the Food and Drug Administration.UPDATES to 'Lost on the Frontlines'
Emergency medical technicians raced by ambulance to help. Others did the cleanup, maintenance, security or transportation jobs needed to keep operations running smoothly.
The workers profiled by the project undertook their work with passion and dedication. They were also beloved spouses, parents, friends, military veterans, immigrants and community activists.
None started 2020 knowing that simply showing up to work would expose them to a virus that would kill them.
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