CDC Updates Isolation Guidance For Health Care Workers As Hospitals Brace For Omicron Wave

Despite the good news that the Omicron variant appears to be less severe, health care professionals are extremely concerned about their workforce catching it in droves due to how transmissible it is.

"It is absolutely a concern that we have been talking about for the last month considering the Omicron variant," said Dr. Mary Clarke, president of the Oklahoma State Medical Association.

Clarke said there's no reason to think that health care workers won't be affected by Omicron like everyone else.

"If we start to see more and more breakthrough infections," said Clarke. "We won't have a staff; we have had a staffing issue for years."

Frontline leaders said they are already seeing the warning signs in other states as Omicron is spreading. 

"The hearing that in some places up to 10% or 15% of staff being out at any one time," said Dr. David Chansolme, an infectious disease specialist with Integris Health. "That is a scary deal for us."

With the fear of a potential surge and what is known about the severity of the Omicron variant, the CDC released new emergency guidance for health care facilities, which relaxed the guidelines on isolation and quarantine for health care professionals. 

At crisis level, it could mean someone with COVID-19 is able to work in the health care setting.

"We would obviously keep them in medical grade masks and things like that," said Dr. Dale Bratzler, OU Health's chief COVID-19 officer. "We have already had conversations that we would keep those away from people who are highly immunosuppressed."

But doctors said this really affects them particularly if there is a high admission rate into the hospital and they lose a decent amount of their staff to quarantining with COVID-19. 

"​We will just have to wait and see and play it by ear," said Chansolme. "We have lots of different strategies based on this that and the other based on different possibilities that could come to fruition."