Nearly 95,000 health-care workers contracted COVID-19 and 43 died throughout pandemic: report

A health-care worker wearing PPE transports a patient in the dialysis unit at the Humber River Hospital during the COVID-19 pandemic in Toronto on Wednesday, December 9, 2020. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette

TORONTO -

Nearly 95,000 health-care workers have been infected with COVID-19 and 43 have died from the disease throughout the pandemic, according to a new report.

The Canadian institute for Health Information released new data on Thursday about how many health-care workers have been impacted by the novel coronavirus as of June 15, 2021.

Out of the more than 1.4 million COVID-19 cases reported in Canada, 94,873 were among health-care workers and 43 of those workers have died due to the disease.

Canada’s total virus-related death toll currently stands at 26,761.

The majority of those coronavirus infections among health-care workers were in Quebec (12.3 per cent) and Ontario (4.4 per cent).

Infections among health-care workers represent at least 6.8 per cent of Canada’s total COVID-19 cases.

In comparison, health-care worker cases make up 1.5 per cent of total cases in the United States, 10.7 per cent in Netherlands,1.4 per cent in France and 2.4 per cent in Germany.

Compared to data collected earlier in the pandemic, cases among Canadian health-care workers continued to rise but the share of infections continued to fall.

As of July 2020, health-care worker cases represented 19.4 per cent of Canada’s total case count, but dropped to 9.5 per cent in Jan. 2021.

When looking at data from Ontario, British Columbia and Manitoba, personal support workers are 1.8 times more likely to contract the virus compared to nurses and 3.3 times more likely compared to doctors.

The latest data comes after Ontario’s top doctor announced earlier this week that proof of vaccination or regular COVID-19 testing will be mandatory in high-risk settings, including hospitals and home care providers, by Sept. 7.