France: Healthcare workers infected with mild COVID-19 to work amid staff shortage

As the cases of COVID-19 reported a record high in France, the government has directed the health staff to resume their work even after "testing positive for the virus". According to the latest guidelines issued by the health ministry, those healthcare workers who were tested positive for the COVID-19 could continue their work "if they were vaccinated and asymptomatic". In a press briefing, a senior health official said that the extraordinary measure was announced in order to ease staff shortages at hospitals and other facilities caused by an unprecedented explosion in cases.

Notably, France has been facing an unprecedented health crisis due to the abrupt increase in COVID-19 cases, driven by the new variant.  According to the data exhibited by the health ministry, the country's average daily caseload has more than doubled in a week. On 4 January, Tuesday, France reported a record 3,32,252 daily virus cases due to the Omicron variant. The abrupt upsurge in the cases led to a shortage of hospital staff and other officials associated with the health sector. As of now, more than 20,000 people are hospitalised with the virus in France wherein more than 72% of ICU beds were already occupied.

'Nobody will force healthcare workers to come to work with COVID-19'

As per the data, most virus patients in ICUs are not vaccinated. It is worth mentioning the scary situation has arrived at a time when the government had inoculated around 77% of its population with both doses of the vaccine. "If the system becomes very strained and 50% of our staff are positive, the less symptomatic will come to work because the patients will still need to be cared for," said Dr Marc Leone, head of anesthesiology at the North Hospital in the southern city of Marseille. "But we’re not in that situation yet," he added.

According to  Dr Leone, this was a calculated risk that was announced by the government amid a sudden uptick in the COVID-19 cases. He noted there is a possibility that the health staff may infect the patient but added the infected doctors will only treat the patients who are vaccinated. "If they are tired, have a scratchy throat and prefer to stay at home, nobody will force them to come to work with COVID-19," said Romain Eskenazi, communications director for two hospitals in the French capital’s northern suburbs.

(With inputs from AP)