By China’s National Health Commission revealed that 1,716 medical workers have been infected with the novel coronavirus as of Tuesday (11 February) midnight, and six of whom had died.
Of those, 1,502 medical workers came from Hubei province and 1,102 from Wuhan, China Daily reported today (14 February).
Deputy head of the National Health Commission Zeng Yixin said that the number of medical workers infected was 3.8 per cent of the total infections in China.
China has reported a total number of 63,851 coronavirus cases and 1,381 death cases as of today (14 February).
The number of medical workers being infected in hospitals has yet to confirm, as Mr Zeng said some of the medical workers may have been infected outside of their work.
Medical workers have had to deal with massive numbers of new cases per week and sometimes they had to see patients without proper masks or protective body suits, resorting to reusing the same equipment when they should be changed regularly.
According to a top official at China’s National Health Commission Jiao Yahui (7 February), medical staff in protective suits will “wear diapers, reduce how much water they drink, and reduce how many times they use the bathroom”.
She said some of them will wear the same protective suit for six or even nine hours when they should not be worn for more than four hours in a quarantined ward.
The deputy mayor of Wuhan said on 7 February that the city faced a daily shortage of 56,000 N95 masks and 41,000 protective suits.
The Chinese government has responded by mobilizing the entire country to increase the production of masks and suits.
The country has imported more than 300 million masks and about 3.9 million articles of protective clothing since 24 January.