Abstract
COVID-19 has dramatically affected working forces. We aim to report our occupational medicine service's experience in managing suspected COVID-19 cases during the pandemic. We compared the number of days employees were absent from work due to flu-like symptoms from March 2020 to February 2021 to the same period the previous year (2019-2020). Two hundred thirty-four patients (versus 159 the previous year) who tested negative for SARS-CoV-2 reported flu-like symptoms; the number of days of absence from work was 2812 (previously, 969). On average, employees with flu-like symptoms lost 12.07 working days compared to 6.12 in the previous year (p<0.0001). In conclusion, COVID-19 has increased the number of working day loss. However, our approach proved to be essential, especially in the first months of the pandemic, to limit SARS-CoV-2 spread in workplaces.