COVID-19 as an occupational disease and accident at work – diagnostics, management, and assessment from the BGW’s point of view

ABSTRACT

Especially at the beginning of a pandemic, the risks of infection for health professionals but also for other professions are increased. As a result, more than 220,000 insurance claims due to COVID19 have been reported to the statutory accident insurance institutions (DGUV) since the end of December 2021. COVID19 can be recognized as either an accident at work or an occupational disease. To do this, certain conditions relating to diagnosis and occupational exposure must be met. The recognition rate for occupational diseases is approximately twice as high as for accidents at work (60.0 vs. 30.2%). The most commonly affected by occupational SARSCoV2 infections are nurses in the hospital and in inpatient geriatric care. In 2021, educators were also frequently affected. The assessment of the causal relationship usually does not cause any major problems, as the occupations with an increased risk of infection are already well described in epidemiological studies. So far, there is little experience with the assessment of longterm consequences of COVID19. There are two reasons for this. „Rehabilitation before retirement“also applies to the DGUV. Several specific rehabilitation services have been developed for patients with postCOVID symptoms, the effectiveness of which needs to be evaluated. As a further reason for the lack of experience in the assessment, it must be taken into account that naturally the spontaneous course of the longterm consequences of COVID19 cannot yet be known. An assessment is probably best carried out by the discipline in whose area the most pronounced symptoms fall, i.e. in the case of shortness of breath by pulmonologists, in the case of cardiac arrhythmias by cardiologists or in fatigue and concentration disorders by neurologists. If necessary, the assessment should be carried out with the support of the other disciplines. The good news, the likelihood of severe, longterm courses of COVID19 has been significantly reduced by vaccination.