Prevalence and Outcomes of COVID-19 among Hematology/Oncology Patients and Providers of a Community-Facing Health System during the B1.1.529 (“Omicron”) SARS-CoV-2 Variant Wave

SIMPLE SUMMARY: The COVID-19 pandemic continues, and cancer patients are at high risk for both contracting as well as dying from the infection.

There is not as much data known about newer COVID-19 variants such as Omicron compared to earlier waves for patients with cancer.

In this study, we retrospectively evaluated how COVID-19 positivity affected both patients and their providers in our community-facing cancer clinic.

We found that 33.3% compared to 8.7% of cancer providers versus patients, respectively, tested positive for COVID-19 from December 2021 through April 2022 (p = 0.038).

Furthermore, we saw that almost two-thirds of cancer patients experienced delays in receiving cancer treatments.

Finally, over 10% of cancer patients (4 of 90) died during the Omicron wave.

This study confirms that COVID-19 remains a formidable infection in terms of cancer patients’ treatment as well as livelihood, and continues to result in considerable health care disparities for disadvantaged populations.

ABSTRACT: (1) Background: the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic continues, and patients actively receiving chemotherapy are known to be at enhanced risk for developing symptomatic disease with poorer outcomes.

Our study evaluated the prevalence of COVID-19 among patients and providers of our community-facing county health system during the B1.1.529 (“Omicron”) COVID-19 variant wave.

(2) Methods: We retrospectively analyzed patients that received care and clinical providers whom worked at the Jackson Memorial Hospital Hematology/Oncology clinic in Miami, Florida, USA, from 1 December 2021 through 30 April 2022.

We assessed demographic variables and quality outcomes among patients.

(3) Results: 1031 patients and 18 providers were retrospectively analyzed.

90 patients tested positive for COVID-19 (8.73%), while 6 providers tested positive (33.3%) (p = 0.038).

There were 4 (10.3%) COVID-19-related deaths (and another outside our study timeframe) and 39 non-COVID-19-related deaths (89.7%) in the patient population (p = 0.77).

COVID-19 accounted for 4.44% of our clinic’s total mortality, and delayed care in 64.4% of patients.

(4) Conclusions: The prevalence of COVID-19 positivity in our patient cohort mirrored local, state, and national trends, however a statistically significant greater proportion of our providers tested positive.

Almost two-thirds of patients experienced a cancer treatment delay, significantly impacting oncologic care.