Telework Before Illness Onset Among Symptomatic Adults Aged ≥18 Years With and Without COVID-19 in 11 Outpatient Health Care Facilities — United States, July 2020

Details

• Journal Article:
  Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR)
• Personal Author:
  Fisher, Kiva A. ; Olson, Samantha M. ; Tenforde, Mark W. ; Feldstein, Leora R. ; Lindsell, Christopher J. ; Shapiro, Nathan I. ; Files, D. Clark ; Gibbs, Kevin W. ; Erickson, Heidi L. ; Prekker, Matthew E. ; Steingrub, Jay S. ; Exline, Matthew C. ; Henning, Daniel J. ; Wilson, Jennifer G. ; Brown, Samuel M. ; Peltan, Ithan D. ; Rice, Todd W. ; Hager, David N. ; Ginde, Adit A. ; Talbot, H. Keipp ; Casey, Jonathan D. ; Grijalva, Carlos G. ; Flannery, Brendan ; Patel, Manish M. ; Self, Wesley H. ; Hart, Kimberly W. ; McClellan, Robert ; Tan, Hsi-nien ; Baughman, Adrienne ; Hennesy, Nora A. ; Grear, Brittany ; Wu, Michael ; Mlynarczyk, Kristin ; Marzano, Luc ; Plata, Zuwena ; Caplan, Alexis ; Ogokeh, E. ; Smith, Emily R. ; Kim, Sara S. ; Griggs, Eric P. ; Richards, Bridget ; Robinson, Sonya ; Kim, Kaylee ; Kassem, Ahmed M. ; Sciarratta, Courtney N. ; Marcet, Paula L.
• Corporate Authors:
  IVY Network Investigators ; CDC COVID-19 Response Team
• Description:
  Since March 2020, large-scale efforts to reduce Transmission of SARS-CoV-2, the Virus that causes coronaVirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), have continued. Mitigation measures to reduce workplace exposures have included work site policies to support flexible work site options, including telework, whereby employees work remotely without commuting to a central place of work.* Opportunities to telework have varied across industries among U.S. jobs where telework options are feasible (1). However, little is known about the impact of telework on risk for SARS-CoV-2 infection. A case-control investigation was conducted to compare telework between eligible symptomatic persons who received positive SARS-CoV-2 reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test results (case-patients, 153) and symptomatic persons with negative test results (control-participants, 161). Eligible participants were identified in outpatient health care facilities during July 2020. Among employed participants who reported on their telework status during the 2 weeks preceding illness onset (248), the percentage who were able to telework on a full- or part-time basis was lower among case-patients (35%; 42 of 120) than among control-participants (53%; 68 of 128) (p<0.01). Case-patients were more likely than were control-participants to have reported going exclusively to an office or school setting (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] = 1.8; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.2-2.7) in the 2 weeks before illness onset. The association was also observed when further restricting to the 175 participants who reported working in a profession outside the critical infrastructure| (aOR = 2.1; 95% CI = 1.3-3.6). Providing the option to work from home or telework when possible, is an important consideration for reducing the risk for SARS-CoV-2 infection. In industries where telework options are not available, worker safety measures should continue to be scaled up to reduce possible worksite exposures.
• Subjects:
  Adolescent Adult Ambulatory Care Facilities Case-Control Studies CoronaVirus Infections COVID-19 Female Humans Male Middle Aged Pandemics Pneumonia, Viral Symptom Assessment Telecommunications Work Young Adult

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• Source:
  MMWR Morbidity Mortal Weekly Rep. 69(44):1648-1653
• Series:
  Weekly Report: Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR)
• ISSN:
  0149-2195 (print) ; 1545-861X (digital)
• Pubmed ID:
  33151918
• Pubmed Central ID:
  PMC7643895
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  United States
• Pages in Document:
  6 pdf pages
• Volume:
  69
• Issue:
  44
• Collection(s):
  Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR)
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:39ba7a4e464d0e14e4938cd44d368c41ba58244161af40bc02ea7d37f1022d0968f5ec82d810ed2001289dca4641e47f315ae4d5a3c29fccfe0e42f5c5b26784
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/97449/cdc_97449_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 223.94 KB ]