Abstract
There is currently scant data on COVID-19 related death cases among
physicians with different medical specialties. Mortality data among
physicians in Italy show that General Practitioners (GPs) are the most
affected group. They currently represent the 43% of the total COVID-19
related death cases among physicians, whereas the estimated proportion
of GPs compared to other doctors is of 15%. This high number among GPs
is attributable to a work-related contagion happened massively during
the first weeks of the epidemic, but constantly continuing also in the
weeks following the national lock-down. There are various reasons for
these higher contagion rates: GPs use to daily perform a lot of medical
examinations in close contacts with patients, and in addition it should
be considered that SARS-CoV-2 can resist on the clinics’ surfaces for
several hours and it can be transmitted also at distances longer than
two meters, persisting in the air after an aerosolization process.
Furthermore, especially at the beginning of the epidemic GPs might have
scant information on specific safety procedures for the prevention of
COVID-19 transmission (e.g. there was scant knowledge on the possibility
of contagions from asyntomatic patients) and, morever, the availability
of personal protective equipment was insufficient. Following these
observations, and considering the high tribute in term of lives from the
GPs, Covid-19 pandemic will probably revolutionize the approach to
patients in the general practice. Clear and effective guidelines are
absolutely and urgently needed, for the refinement of adequate measures
to prevent SARS-CoV-2 infections among GPs.