https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/02/210225082547.htm

"Each year dozens of potentially lethal outbreaks affect populations around the world. For example, Ebola ravaged western Africa in 2014; Zika damaged lives in the Americas in 2015; and now we are in the midst of a worldwide pandemic -- COVID-19," said Katriona Shea, professor of biology and Alumni Professor in the Biological Sciences, Penn State. "Healthcare workers are essential to providing care during such outbreaks. Yet, their exposure to the diseases they treat means they too may become victims of the outbreak. Conventional epidemic models do not usually consider this important driver of quality of care, and may thus underestimate epidemic burdens."

In their new model, the researchers investigated the direct impact of the loss of healthcare workers on outbreak outcomes. Specifically, they examined the impacts of healthcare workers becoming infected and unable to work on case counts and mortality. In the model, they refer to this as "loss impact." They also examined "redundancy," which they define as the minimum number of health care workers required to provide adequate care.