Why sending sick workers home actually makes MORE people ill: Bringing in healthy workers ’causes diseases to spread more rapidly’

August 3, 2016

New epidemic forecast models show flu lingers more than we thought
It means replacement workers are coming into hotbed of viral germs
Employers should either replace staff as early as possible or not at all
But sick staff should always take time off to stop spread, scientists warn

Mia De Graaf For Dailymail.com

Published:
10:39 EST, 3 August 2016

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Updated:
10:39 EST, 3 August 2016

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If a worker calls out sick, employers will often bring in a healthy replacement for the day.

But a new study warns this practice dramatically increases the risk of spreading infection.

Though logical in theory, experts at the Santa Fe Institute warn workplaces can be a hotbed of viral transmissions, and the sick worker’s germs may still be lingering.

It means that substitute teachers or back-up office staff could be exposed to elements of the illness, thereby increasing the number of people infected.

Workplaces can be a hotbed of viral transmissions, with sick workers’ germs still lingering

To explain the theory, Santa Fe’s mathematical biologist Samuel Scarpino created real-world scenarios on a computer model, placing humans into office scenarios.

He was assisted by theoretical physicist Laurent Hébert-Dufresne, a fellow at the Institute, and Antoine Allard, Hébert-Dufresne’s longtime collaborator from the University of Barcelona.

Both study complex patterns in networks.

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The study, published this week in Nature Physics, used a series of specific scenarios to demonstrate that human exchange spreads the flu even more easily than we thought.

It means scientists may have to reassess the way they predict the potential reach of a disease outbreak.

‘One take-home of our study is that it may be very difficult to predict the size of a disease outbreak,’ Scarpino said.

‘Mass-action models can’t really account for the kind of sudden speed up and slow down’ in transmission that many real-world epidemics show.

New way to approach disease spread: Employers should work to replace sick workers at the beginning of an epidemic, keeping them through the epidemic’s peak to limit its spread

‘This doesn’t mean nurses and doctors shouldn’t go home when they’re sick, ‘ Scarpino cautioned.

‘If you’re making strategic decisions about how many healthcare workers you need, how many people you might expect to show up in the hospital, or how many courses of antivirals or antibiotics you might need, then the pace and tempo of cases matters deeply.

He said employers should work to replace sick workers at the beginning of an epidemic, keeping that replacement through the epidemic’s peak to limit its spread.

Scarpino, now an assistant professor at the University of Vermont, says he hopes to see this effect integrated into future epidemiological models.

‘Models where you start to incorporate slightly more realistic human behavior are essential if we’re going to make high-fidelity public health and clinical decisions,’ he says.