OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #221393663
HANCOCK COUNTY HEALTH SYSTEM FOUNDATION
BRITT, IA·
Event description
Employee with COVID-19 infection is hospitalized
Investigation abstract
An employee was working as a certified nurse's aide at a health center that held having difficulty breathing and his oxygen at home was low. He was administered a rapid COVID-19 test and determined that day to be positive for COVID-19. He was experiencing symptoms including congestion, runny nose, fever, and coughing. At around 6:00 p.m. on September 15, he was admitted to the hospital. Due to the employee's incomplete response, the employer could not determine at the time that the employee's hospitalization was reported whether the COVID-19 infection was work-related. It could not be determined where the employee had contracted COVID-19. There was a significant community spread of the virus in the area, so it could not be known if he contracted the virus through a work exposure or if it had been acquired in the community. The employee had stated that he always offices for physicians and health care providers. His last day at work was wore the proper personal protective equipment (PPE) when at work. The employer made the report of the employee's hospitalization out of caution. Sunday, September 5, 2021. He began to exhibit symptoms of COVID-19 on Tuesday, September 7, so it was likely that he had contracted COVID-19 a few days earlier. He could not describe his activities outside of the workplace for the two weeks before he tested positive. The employer discovered through the employee's social media posts that on the dates between August 14 and September 7, the employee was likely socializing. On Friday, September 10, the employee was supposed to work a shift. Instead, he came to the workplace because he was
Victim
-
#1 Hospitalized Age 64 M
- Event type
- 14
- Occupation code
- 446
Codes shown verbatim from OSHA's accident-investigation database. A human-readable decoder is coming in a future release once the accident_lookup2 dictionary is loaded.