U.S. study finds COVID-19 patients have significantly higher rates of healthcare associated infections

Researchers may have found a reason why healthcare settings were seeing an uptick in healthcare-associated infections during the pandemic. U.S. research shows COVID-19 patients are uniquely susceptible to new infections while receiving care at a healthcare facility compared to other patients and health professionals should take this into account. Bloodstream infections were almost four times higher in COVID-19 patients, catheter-associated infections were 2.7 times higher and MRSA infections were triple that of non-COVID patients. Researchers say it’s unclear at this stage why COVID-19 patients might be more susceptible to these infections.