During the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, over one in ten COVID-19 patients in the UK caught the virus during their visit to a hospital for other reasons, reported researchers in The Lancet. 

The study was conducted based on data obtained from 314 hospitals pertaining to the diagnoses made prior to August 2020. Dr Chris Green, a study coauthor, said that the lack of resources during the early days of the pandemic, like rapid, reliable tests, personal protective equipment, and isolation facilities, and under recognition of the role of airborne transmission played a role in the high rate of hospital-acquired COVID-19 in the country. 

In the United States, doctors at a New York cancer hospital noted that less than 1% of patients contracted the infection while hospitalized between March 2020 and February 2021, reported a study published in Clinical Infectious Diseases. A Harvard University teaching hospital reported only one case of hospital-acquired COVID-19 out of a total of 8,370 patients during the first four months of the pandemic… (Reuters, August 14, 2021)