Changes

The impact of the first wave of the pandemic amongst healthcare professionals was very high, i.e. one in five cases were healthcare workers. Also, a large part of this impact fell on women, as the group of healthcare professionals is largely female. These noteworthy data could be linked to the difficulties in supplying personal protective equipment at the beginning of the pandemic, the initial lack of knowledge on how the virus itself behaved and the easier access to diagnosis for healthcare professionals. The peak time of infection amongst healthcare professionals was in March. The figures showing the number of healthcare workers infected during the first wave of the pandemic were high, i.e. 15,344 cases in the province of Madrid, 3,354 in the province of Barcelona, around 2,000 in the province of Biscay (Bizkaia), and 1,000 in the provinces of Valencia and Ciudad Real. In proportional terms (infected healthcare workers compared to the total number of cases), provinces such as Biscay (Bizkaia), Álava, Cuenca and Granada (between 20 and 25%) were more than 5 percentage points higher than the national average (15.3%), and some others, like Asturias, Tarragona, Guadalajara and Santa Cruz de Teneriffe (Santa Cruz de Tenerife), were even higher than 25%.