Physician deaths from corona virus (COVID-19) disease
Open accessPublished version of a preprint
Abstract
Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has caused much morbidity and mortality to patients but also health care providers. Aims: We tabulated the cases of physician deaths from COVID-19 associated with front-line work in hopes of mitigating future events. Methods: On 15 April 2020, a Google internet search was performed using the keywords ‘doctor’, ‘physician’, ‘death’, ‘COVID’ and ‘coronavirus’ in English and Farsi, and Chinese using the Baidu search engine. The age, sex and medical speciality of physicians who died from COVID-19 in the line of duty were recorded. Individuals greater than 90 years of age were excluded. Results: We found 278 physicians who died with COVID-19 infection, but complete details were missing for 108 individuals. The average age of the physicians was 63.7 years with a median age of 66 years, and 90% were male (235/261). General practitioners and emergency room doctors (108/254), respirologists (5/254), internal medicine specialists (13/254) and anaesthesiologists (6/254) comprised 52% of those dying. Two per cent of the deceased were epidemiologists (5/254), 2% were infectious disease specialists (4/254), 6% were dentists (16/254), 4% were ENT (9/254) and 3% were ophthalmologists (8/254). The countries with the most reported physician deaths were Italy (121/278; 44%), Iran (43/278; 15%), Philippines (21/278; 8%), Indonesia (17/278; 6%), China (16/278; 6%), Spain (12/278; 4%), USA (12/278; 4%) and UK (11/278;4%). Conclusions: Physicians from all specialities may die from COVID. Lack of personal protective equipment was cited as a common cause of death. Consideration should be made to exclude older physicians from front-line work.
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Widespread heterogeneity exists in the accuracy and completeness of reported deaths from covid-19 across countries and jurisdictions.
“However, widespread heterogeneity exists in the accuracy and completeness of reported deaths from covid-19 across countries and jurisdictions.”
From Excess deaths associated with covid-19 pandemic in 2020: age and sex disaggregated time series analysis in 29 high income countries (2021) · cites this paper as [2]
The reliable ascertainment of deaths from covid-19 depends on widespread testing for covid-19 and on the methods used to assign cause of death, both of which vary between countries.
“The reliable ascertainment of deaths from covid-19 depends on widespread testing for covid-19 and on the methods used to assign cause of death, both of which vary between countries.”
From Excess deaths associated with covid-19 pandemic in 2020: age and sex disaggregated time series analysis in 29 high income countries (2021) · cites this paper as [2]
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Cites
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Older Clinicians and the Surge in Novel Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)
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- Authors
- Ing, E. B., Xu, Q. (., Salimi, A., & Torun, N.
- Affiliations
- University of Toronto (CA)
- University of British Columbia (CA)
- McGill University (CA)
- Harvard University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Ing, E B
- Venue
- Occupational Medicine
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2020-05-15
- Volume
- 70
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 370-374
- ISSN
- 0962-7480 (ISSN-L)
- 1471-8405
- PMC
- PMC7239175
- OpenAlex
- W3025090567
- Cited by
- 238
- References
- 5
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 18 · 2023: 13 · 2022: 36 · 2021: 90 · 2020: 74
- FWCI
- 55.58
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Licence
- academic.oup.com/journals/pages/open_access/funder_policies/chorus/standard_publication_model (vor)
- Locations
- Occupational Medicine (publishedVersion)
- medRxiv (acceptedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Healthcare Systems and Challenges
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Infectious Diseases › COVID-19 Clinical Research Studies
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Oncology › COVID-19 and healthcare impacts
- Keywords
- COVID-19 pandemic, physician death, occupational exposure, personal protective equipment, general practitioners, medical specialties, age and sex distribution, older physicians
- MeSH terms
- Betacoronavirus, COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, Adult, Aged, Female, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Physicians, Pneumonia, Viral, Coronavirus Infections, Pandemics
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