News, Analysis, Trends, Management Innovations for
Clinical Laboratories and Pathology Groups

Hosted by Robert Michel

News, Analysis, Trends, Management Innovations for
Clinical Laboratories and Pathology Groups

Hosted by Robert Michel
Sign In

UCSF Researchers Identify Genetic Mutation That Promotes an Asymptomatic Response in Humans to COVID-19 Infection

Understanding why some people display no symptoms during a COVID-19 infection could lead to new precision medicine genetic tests medical labs could use to identify people with the mutated gene

New research from the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) may explain why some people could get COVID-19 but never test positive on a clinical laboratory test or develop symptoms despite exposure to the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus.

According to the UCSF study, variations in a specific gene in a system of genes responsible for regulating the human immune system appears to be the factor in why about 10% of those who become infected with the virus are asymptomatic.

These scientific insights did not receive widespread news coverage but will be of interest to clinical laboratory managers and pathologists who oversee SARS-CoV-2 testing in their labs.

Jill Hollenbach, PhD

“Some people just don’t have symptoms at all,” Jill Hollenbach, PhD (above), Professor of Neurology at UCSF’s Weill Institute for Neurosciences and lead researcher in the study, told NBC News. “There’s something happening at a really fundamental level in the immune response that is helping those people to just completely wipe out this infection.” Identifying a genetic reason why some people are asymptomatic could lead to new precision medicine clinical laboratory diagnostics for COVID-19. (Photo copyright: Elena Zhukova /University of California San Francisco.)

Fortunate Gene Mutation

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) COVID Data Tracker, as of April 5, 2023, a total of 104,242,889 COVID-19 cases have been reported in the United States. However, according to a CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), “Traditional methods of disease surveillance do not capture all COVID-19 cases because some are asymptomatic, not diagnosed, or not reported; therefore, [knowing the true] proportion of the population with SARS-CoV-2 antibodies (i.e., seroprevalence) can improve understanding of population-level incidence of COVID-19.”

Jill Hollenbach, PhD, lead researcher in the UCSF study and Professor of Neurology at UCSF’s Weill Institute for Neurosciences, runs the Hollenbach Lab at UCSF. The lab specializes in the study of two important elements in human immune response:

She also participates in the COVID-19 HLA and Immunogenetics Consortium, a group of academic researchers, clinical laboratory directors, journal editors, and others who examine the role of HLA variations in determining COVID-19 risk.

Hollenbach’s research identified an HLA variant—known as HLA-B*15:01—that causes the human immune system to react quickly to SARS-CoV-2 and “basically nuke the infection before you even start to have symptoms,” she told NPR.

“It’s definitely luck,” she added. “But, you know, this [gene] mutation is quite common. We estimate that maybe one in 10 people have it. And in people who are asymptomatic, that rises to one in five.”

The researchers published their findings on the medRxiv preprint server titled, “A Common Allele of HLA Mediates Asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 Infection.” The UCSF study has not yet been peer-reviewed.

UCSF Study Methodology

“HLA variants are among the strongest reported associations with viral infections,” the UCSF study notes. So, the researchers theorized that HLA variations play a role in asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infections as well.

To conduct their study, shortly after the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak in 2020, the researchers recruited approximately 30,000 volunteer bone marrow donors from the National Marrow Donor Program to respond to periodic questions via a smartphone app or website. Because HLA variations can determine appropriate matches between donors and recipients, the database includes information about their HLA types.

Each week, respondents were asked to report if they had been tested for SARS-CoV-2. Each day, they were asked to report whether they had symptoms associated with COVID-19. “We were pretty stringent in our definition of asymptomatic,” Hollenbach told NBC News. “[The respondents couldn’t] even have a scratchy throat.”

The researchers eventually identified a cohort of 1,428 people who had tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 between February 2020 and April 30, 2021, before vaccines were widely available. Among these individuals, 136 reported no symptoms for two weeks before or two weeks after a positive test.

“Overall, one in five individuals (20%) who remained asymptomatic after infection carried HLA-B*15:01, compared to 9% among patients reporting symptoms,” the researchers wrote in their medRxiv preprint. Study participants with two copies of the gene were more than eight times more likely to be asymptomatic.

The UCSF researchers also looked at four other HLA variants and found none to be “significantly associated” with lack of symptoms. They confirmed their findings by reproducing the HLA-B association in two additional independent cohorts, one from an earlier study in the UK and the other consisting of San Francisco-area residents.

Individuals in the latter group had either tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 or reported COVID symptoms, and their DNA was analyzed to determine their HLA types.

Pre-existing T-Cell Immunity May Reduce Severity of COVID-19 Infection

The UCSF researchers also attempted to determine how HLA-B*15:01 plays a role in knocking out SARS-CoV-2 infections. They noted previous research that indicated previous exposure to seasonal coronaviruses, such as common cold viruses, could limit the severity of COVID-19. The scientists hypothesized that pre-existing T-cell immunity in HLA-B carriers may be the key.

The COVID-19 HLA and Immunogenetics Consortium website describes how HLA and T-cells work together to ward off disease. HLA “proteins are found on the surface of all cells except red-blood cells.” They’re “like windows into the inner workings of a cell,” and T-cells use the molecules to determine the presence of foreign proteins that are likely signs of infection. “Activated T-cells can kill infected cells, or activate B-cells, which produce antibodies in response to an infection,” the website explains.  

Hollenbach’s research team analyzed T-cells from pre-pandemic individuals and observed that in more than half of HLA-B carriers, the T-cells were reactive to a SARS-CoV-2 peptide. The scientists corroborated the hypothesis by examining crystal structures of the HLA-B*15:01 molecule in the presence of coronavirus spike peptides from SARS-CoV-2 and two other human coronaviruses: OC43-CoV and HKU1-CoV.

“Altogether, our results strongly support the hypothesis that HLA-B*15:01 mediates asymptomatic COVID-19 disease via pre-existing T-cell immunity due to previous exposure to HKU1-CoV and OC43-CoV,” the researchers wrote.

Can Genes Prevent COVID-19 Infections?

Meanwhile, researchers at The Rockefeller University in New York City are attempting to go further and see if there are mutations that prevent people from getting infected in the first place. NPR reported that they were seeking participants for a study seeking to identify so-called “superdodger” genes.

“You fill out a questionnaire online about your exposures to SARS-CoV-2,” explained Jean-Laurent Casanova, MD, PhD, professor, senior attending physician, and head of the St. Giles Laboratory of Human Genetics of Infectious Diseases at The Rockefeller University, who is leading the study.

Study participants identified as possibly having superdodger genes receive a kit designed to collect saliva samples, after which the researchers sequence the respondents’ genomes. “We hope that in a group of 2,000 to 4,000 people, some people will have genetic mutations that tell us why they’re resistant to infection,” Casanova told NPR.

All this genetic research is in very early stages. But results are promising and may lead to new precision medicine clinical laboratory tests for identifying people who are predisposed to having an asymptomatic response to COVID-19 infection. That in turn could help scientists learn how to moderate or even eliminate symptoms in those unfortunate people who suffer the typical symptoms of the disease.   

—Stephen Beale

Related Information:

A Common Allele of HLA Mediates Asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 Infection

What People with ‘Super Immunity’ Can Teach Us about COVID and Other Viruses

So, You Haven’t Caught COVID Yet. Does That Mean You’re a Superdodger?

If You Haven’t Gotten COVID Yet, This Might Be Why

Trends in Number of COVID-19 Cases and Deaths in the US Reported to CDC, by State/Territory

UC San Francisco Researchers Discover Why Some People Are Asymptomatic When Infected with COVID-19

Seroprevalence of Infection-Induced SARS-CoV-2 Antibodies—United States, September 2021–February 2022

Italian Scientists Train Dogs to Detect Presence or Absence of COVID-19 in Humans with Remarkable Accuracy

Dogs’ acute sense of smell can even surpass effectiveness of some clinical laboratory testing in detecting certain diseases in humans

When it comes to COVID-19 testing, a recent Italian study demonstrates that trained dogs can detect SARS-CoV-2 with accuracy comparable to rapid molecular tests used in clinical laboratories. The researchers wanted to determine if dogs could be more effective at screening people for COVID-19 at airports, schools, and other high-traffic environments as a way to detect the coronavirus and reduce the spread of this infectious disease.

Scientists at the State University of Milan in Italy conducted a study that shows dogs can be trained to accurately identify the presence of the COVID-19 infection from both biological samples and by simply smelling an individual. 

For their validation study, the Italian team trained three dogs named Nala, Otto, and Helix, “to detect the presence of SARS-CoV-2 in sweat samples from infected people. At the end of the training, the dogs achieved an average sensitivity of 93% and a specificity of 99%, showing a level of accuracy highly consistent with that of the RT-PCR [reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction] used in molecular tests and a moderate to strong reproducibility over time,” Nature reported.

RT-PCR tests are the current gold-standard for SARS-CoV-2 detection. This is yet another example of scientists training dogs to smell a disease with “acceptable” accuracy. This time for COVID-19.

The researchers published the results of their study in the journal Scientific Reports titled, “Sniffer Dogs Performance is Stable Over Time in Detecting COVID-19 Positive Samples and Agrees with the Rapid Antigen Test in the Field.” Their findings support the idea that biosensing canines could be used to help reduce the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus in high-risk environments.

Frederica Pirrone, PhD

“We only recruited dogs that showed themselves predisposed and positively motivated to carry out this type of activity. One of the fundamental aspects was not to cause stress or anxiety in the subjects used,” Federica Pirrone, PhD (above), Associate Professor, Department of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Sciences, University of Milan, and one of the authors of the study told Lifegate. “Training always takes place using positive reinforcement of a food nature: whether it’s a particularly appetizing morsel, a biscuit, or something that associates the dog’s search with a rewarding prize.” In some instances, dogs have been shown to be as good or more effective at detecting certain diseases than clinical laboratory testing. (Photo copyright: Facebook.)

Dogs More Accurate than Rapid Antigen Testing

Nala and four other dogs (Nim, Hope, Iris and Chaos) were later trained by canine technicians from Medical Detection Dogs Italy (MDDI) to identify the existence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus by directly smelling people waiting in line in pharmacies to get a nasal swab to test for the coronavirus.

Working with their handlers, the five dogs accurately signaled the presence or absence of the virus with 89% sensitivity and 95% specificity. That rate is “well above the minimum required by the WHO [World Health Organization] for rapid swabs for SARS-CoV-2,” according to Nature.

“The results of studies published so far on the accuracy of canine smell in detecting the presence of SARS-CoV-2 in biological samples (e.g., saliva, sweat, urine, trachea-bronchial secretions) from infected people suggest that sniffer dogs might reach percentages of sensitivity and specificity comparable to, or perhaps even higher, than those of RT-PCR,” the scientists wrote in Scientific Reports.

“However, although most of these studies are of good quality, none of them provided scientific validation of canine scent detection, despite this being an important requirement in the chemical analysis practice. Therefore, further applied research in this field is absolutely justified to provide definitive validation of this biodetection method,” the researchers concluded.

Other Studies into Using Dogs for Detecting Disease

In a similar study published in the journal Frontiers in Medicine titled, “Dogs Detecting COVID-19 from Sweat and Saliva of Positive People: A Field Experience in Mexico,” researchers found that dogs could be trained to detect the presence or absence of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus from human sweat and saliva samples. 

Scientists from the Division of Biological and Health Sciences, Department of Agriculture and Livestock at the University of Sonora; and the Canine Training Center Obi-K19, both in Hermosillo, Mexico, conducted the study “as part of a Frontiers of Science Project of the National Council of Science and Technology (CONACYT), in which in addition to analyzing sweat compounds, trained dogs are put to sniff the samples and make detections in people who show symptoms or could be positive for coronavirus,” Mexico Daily Post reported.

The researchers trained four dogs with sweat samples and three dogs with saliva samples of COVID-19 positive patients. The samples were obtained from a health center located in Hermosillo, Sonora, in Mexico. The dogs were restricted to spend five minutes per patient and the researchers calculated the performance of the dogs by measuring sensitivity, specificity, and their 95% confidence intervals (CI).

The researchers concluded that all four of the dogs could detect COVID-19 from either sweat or saliva samples “with sensitivity and specificity rates significantly different from random [sampling] in the field.” According to the Frontiers in Medicine study, the researchers found their results promising because, they said, it is reasonable to expect the detection rate would improve with longer exposure to the samples.  

The objective of the Mexican researchers is for the dogs to ultimately reach the sensitivity range requested by WHO for the performance of an antigen test, which is at least 80% sensitivity and 97% specificity. If that goal is achieved, dogs could become important partners in the control of the COVID-19 pandemic, the scientists wrote. 

In “German Scientists Train Dogs to Detect the Presence of COVID-19 in Saliva Samples; Can a Canine’s Nose Be as Accurate as Clinical Laboratory Testing?Dark Daily reported on a pilot study conducted by researchers at the University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover (TiHo), the Hannover Medical School, and the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf involving eight specialized sniffer dogs from the Bundeswehr (German armed forces) to determine if the dogs could find people infected with the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. After only one week of training, the dogs were able to accurately detect the presence of the COVID-19 infection 94% of the time.

And in “New Study Shows Dogs Can be Trained to Sniff Out Presence of Prostate Cancer in Urine Samples,” we covered how scientists from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, University of Texas, Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and others, had conducted a pilot study that demonstrated dogs could identify prostate samples containing cancer and discern between cancer positive and cancer negative samples.

Data obtained so far from these studies indicate that biosensing dogs may represent an effective method of screening for COVID-19 as well as other diseases. More studies and clinical trials are needed before the widespread use of dogs might become feasible. Nevertheless, scientists all over the world are finding that Man’s best friend can be a powerful ally in the fight against the spread of deadly diseases.

In the meantime, the gold standard in COVID-19 testing will continue to be the FDA-cleared assays used by clinical laboratories throughout the United States.

—JP Schlingman

Related Information:

Sniffer Dogs Performance is Stable Over Time in Detecting COVID-19 Positive Samples and Agrees with the Rapid Antigen Test in the Field

COVID: Goodbye Swabs, the Dogs Will Sniff It

There Are Dogs That Are Able to “Sniff Out” Diseases

Antigen-detection in the Diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 Infection

Dogs Detecting COVID-19 from Sweat and Saliva of Positive People: A Field Experience in Mexico

German Scientists Train Dogs to Detect the Presence of COVID-19 in Saliva Samples; Can a Canine’s Nose Be as Accurate as Clinical Laboratory Testing?

New Study Shows Dogs Can Be Trained to Sniff Out Presence of Prostate Cancer in Urine Samples

Healthcare Experts See Links Between COVID-19 and RSV as Tripledemic Pressures Ease on Hospitals and Clinical Laboratories

Some medical experts suggest an ‘immunity gap’ related to COVID-19 mitigation measures, while others point to alternative theories

Surge in fall/winter SARS-CoV-2, influenza (flu), and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) hospitalizations and ensuing clinical laboratory test referrals—dubbed by some public health experts as a “tripledemic”—appear to have eased in the US, according to stats from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Becker’s Hospital Review reported. However, scientists are still left with questions about why the RSV outbreak was so pronounced.

Some healthcare experts point to an “immunity gap” tied to the COVID-19 pandemic, while others suggest alternative theories such as temporary immunodeficiency brought on by COVID-19. In most cases, RSV causes “mild, cold-like symptoms,” but the CDC states it also can cause serious illness, especially for infants, young children, and older adults, leading to emergency room visits, hospitalizations, and an increased demand for clinical laboratory testing.

Pulmonology Advisor reported that the disease typically peaks between December and February, but hospitalizations this season hit their peak in November with numbers far higher than in previous years. In addition to infants and older adults, children between five and 17 years of age were “being hospitalized far in excess of their numbers in previous seasons,” the publication reported.

Asuncion Meijas MD, PhD

“Age by itself is a risk factor for more severe disease, meaning that the younger babies are usually the ones that are sick-sick,” pediatrician Asuncion Mejias, MD, PhD (above), a principal investigator with the Center for Vaccines and Immunity at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, told MarketWatch. Now, she added, “we are also seeing older kids, probably because they were not exposed to RSV the previous season.” Clinical laboratories in hospitals caught the brunt of those RSV inpatient admissions. (Photo copyright: Nationwide Children’s Hospital.)

Did COVID-19 Cause Immunity Gap and Surge in Respiratory Diseases?

CDC data shows that hospitalization rates linked to RSV have steadily declined since hitting their peak of 5.2 per 100,000 people in mid-November. In contrast, hospitalizations linked to the flu peaked in late November and early December at 8.7 per 100,000. Hospitalizations linked to COVID 19—which still exceed those of the other respiratory diseases—reached a plateau of 9.7 per 100,000 in early December, then saw an uptick later that month before declining in the early part of January, 2023, according to the CDC’s Respiratory Virus Hospitalization Surveillance Network (RESP-NET) dashboard.

Surveillance by the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (NCIRD) revealed a similar pattern: An early peak in weekly numbers for emergency room visits for RSV, followed by a spike for influenza and steadier numbers for COVID-19.

So, why was the RSV outbreak so severe?

Respiratory diseases tend to hit hardest in winter months when people are more likely to gather indoors. Beyond that, some experts have cited social distancing and masking requirements imposed in 2020 and 2021 to limit the spread of COVID 19. These measures, along with school closures, had the side effect of reducing exposure to influenza and RSV.

“It’s what’s being referred to as this ‘immunity gap’ that people have experienced from not having been exposed to our typical respiratory viruses for the last couple of years, combined with reintroduction to indoor gatherings, indoor venues, indoor school, and day care without any of the mitigation measures that we had in place for the last couple of years,” infectious disease expert Kristin Moffitt, MD, of Boston Children’s Hospital told NPR.

Term ‘Immunity Debt’ Sparks Controversy

Other experts have pushed back against the notion that pandemic-related public health measures are largely to blame for the RSV upsurge. Many have objected to the term “immunity debt,” a term Forbes reported on in November.

“Immunity debt is a made-up term that did not exist until last year,” pediatrician Dave Stukus, MD, wrote on Twitter. Stukus is a Professor of Clinical Pediatrics in the Division of Allergy and Immunology at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.

An article published by Texas Public Radio (TPR) suggests further grounds for skepticism, stating that “the immunity debt theory doesn’t seem to hold up to scrutiny.”

Pediatrician and infectious disease expert Theresa Barton, MD, of UT Health San Antonio noted that there was also a big RSV surge in summer of 2021.

“That was sort of the great unmasking, and everybody got viral illnesses,” she told TPR. “Now we’re past that. We’ve already been through that. We should have some immunity from that and we’re having it again.”

She added that “the hospital is filled with babies who are less than a year of age who have RSV infection. Those children weren’t locked down in 2020.”

The story also noted that not all Americans complied with social distancing or masking guidelines.

“We’re not seeing [less viral illness in] states in the United States that were less strict compared to states that were stricter during mask mandates and things like that. All the states are being impacted,” Barton told TPR.

Perfect Storm of Demand for Clinical Laboratory Testing

Barton suggested that COVID-19 might have compromised people’s immune systems in ways that made them more susceptible to other respiratory diseases. For example, a study published in Nature Immunology, titled, “Immunological Dysfunction Persists for Eight Months following Initial Mild-to-Moderate SARS-CoV-2 Infection,” found that some patients who survived COVID-19 infection developed post-acute long COVID (LC, aka, COVID syndrome) which lasted longer than 12 weeks. And that “patients with LC had highly activated innate immune cells, lacked naive T and naive B cells, and showed elevated expression of type I IFN (IFN-β) and type III IFN (IFN-λ1) that remained persistently high at eight months after infection.”  

Experts speaking to The Boston Globe said that multiple factors are likely to blame for the severity and early arrival of the RSV outbreak. Pediatric hospitalist and infectious disease specialist Chadi El Saleeby, MD, of Massachusetts General Hospital, said the severity of some cases might be tied to simultaneous infection with multiple viruses.

Clinical laboratories experienced a perfect storm of infectious disease testing demands during this tripledemic. Hopefully, with the arrival of spring and summer, that demand for lab tests will wane and allow for a return to a normal rate of traditional laboratory testing.

Stephen Beale

Related Information:

This Year’s RSV Surge: Bigger, Earlier, and Affecting Older Patients than Previous Seasonal Outbreaks

Experts Explain the ‘Perfect Storm’ of Rampant RSV and Flu

Flu, COVID-19 and RSV are All Trending Down for the First Time in Months

COVID, Flu, RSV Declining in Hospitals As ‘Tripledemic’ Threat Fades

COVID-19 May Be to Blame for the Surge in RSV Illness Among Children. Here’s Why.

Is Immunity Debt or Immunity Theft to Blame for Children’s Respiratory Virus Spike?

Don’t Blame ‘Immunity Debt’ If You Get Sick This Winter

Claims of an Immunity Debt in Children Owe Us Evidence

Some are Blaming ‘Immunity Debt’ for the ‘Tripledemic’—But Experts Disagree

Rapid Tests for COVID, RSV and the Flu are Available in Europe. Why Not in the US?

Clinical Laboratory Technician Shares Personal Journey and Experience with Burnout During the COVID-19 Pandemic

It’s not only medical laboratory technicians, healthcare workers across the board continue to deal with extreme pressures that preceded the pandemic

Burnout in healthcare is a constant problem, especially in overstressed clinical laboratories and anatomic pathology groups. To raise awareness about the plight of medical laboratory technicians (MLTs) and other frontline workers in the healthcare industry, a former lab tech recounted her experience during the COVID-19 pandemic that led to burnout and her departure from the lab profession during 2020-2021.

Suzanna Bator was formerly a laboratory technician with the Cleveland Clinic and with MetroHealth System in Cleveland, Ohio. Her essay in Daily Nurse, titled, “The Hidden Healthcare Heroes: A Lab Techs Journey Through the Pandemic,” is a personalized, human look at the strain clinical laboratory technicians were put under during the pandemic. Her story presents the quandary of how to keep these critical frontline healthcare workers from experiencing burnout and leaving the field.

“We techs were left unsupported and unmentored throughout the pandemic. No one cared if we were learning or growing in our job, and there was little encouragement for us to enter training or residency programs. We were just expendable foot soldiers: this is not a policy that leads to long-term job retention,” she wrote.

Clinical laboratory leaders and pathology group managers may find valuable insights in Bator’s essay that they can use when developing worker support programs for their own clinical laboratories and practices.

Suzanna Bator

“The pressure never let up. No matter how mind-numbing and repetitive the work could get, we had to work with constant vigilance, as there was absolutely no room for error,” Suzanna Bator wrote in Daily Nurse. Burnout in clinical laboratories is an ongoing problem that increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. (Photo copyright: Daily Nurse.)

Hopeful Beginnings and Eager to Help

During the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, folks in every industry stepped up. Fashion designers tasked their haute couture seamstresses with making personal protective equipment (PPE), neighbors brought food and supplies to their immunosuppressed or elderly neighbors, and healthcare workers took on enormous workloads outside of their own departments and traditional responsibilities, The New York Times reported.

When Bator joined the Cleveland Clinic’s COVID-19 team she had no clinical lab tech accreditations. Nevertheless, she and 12 other non-accredited hires were quickly put onto the second and third shifts to keep up with SARS-CoV-2 test demands.

“In the beginning, I was so happy to be helping and working during the pandemic. I felt proud to be on the front lines, honing my skills and discovering what it was like to work under intense pressure. My work was good even when the work was hard. There was no room for error and no time to waste.”

At the Cleveland Clinic, Bator and her colleagues did not experience the equipment and supply shortages other clinics faced, at least not in the beginning of the pandemic. That began to change in late 2020.

Unrelenting Pace and Supply Shortages as Pandemic Grew

Despite their state-of-the-art equipment at the Cleveland Clinic, problems began to arise as the pandemic wore on.

“The machines we worked on were never meant to be run at this intensity and would frequently break down during the second shift. Those of us on the third shift were then left to deal with these problems despite our lack of technical training. Even worse, there were no supervisors on staff to help us problem-solve or troubleshoot, which only added to the pressure,” Bator noted.

And the high demand for testing left little room for new lab techs to hone any other skills.

“The pressure never let up. No matter how mind-numbing and repetitive the work could get, we had to work with constant vigilance, as there was absolutely no room for error,” she added.

Eventually, Bator left the Cleveland Clinic for a county hospital to “get off the graveyard shift and begin working on more than just COVID testing,” she wrote. However, soon after her move the Omicron variant hit, and she was once again running COVID tests.

Six months later she had had enough. She burned out and “dropped out of the industry after only a few years,” she wrote. And she was not the only one.

“The [Cleveland] Clinic began to hemorrhage techs who left for better opportunities at different hospitals or in different fields. Of my original 15-or-so-member team two years ago, only four remain in the same department, and only about half remain in the clinical lab field at all,” Bator wrote.

Burnout in Clinical Laboratories

Worker burnout is a state of mental and/or physical exhaustion caused by a heavy workload. Those experiencing burnout may feel emotionally overwhelmed, anxious, and depressed. Burnout can manifest in physical, mental, and emotional symptoms.

Burnout in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic is an issue affecting all facets of healthcare. According to Forbes, a 2022 report by Elsevier Health found that 47% of US healthcare workers plan to leave their current role in the next two to three years, in some measure due to the enormous pressures healthcare workers face.

And workers are not the only ones paying attention to burnout. On May 23, 2022, the United States Surgeon General, Vice Admiral Vivek Murthy, MD, issued a Surgeon General’s Advisory highlighting the need to address worker burnout.

“COVID-19 has been a uniquely traumatic experience for the health workforce and for their families, pushing them past their breaking point,” Murthy noted. “Now, we owe them a debt of gratitude and action. And if we fail to act, we will place our nation’s health at risk. This Surgeon General’s Advisory outlines how we can all help heal those who have sacrificed so much to help us heal.”  

Healthcare workers were facing high levels of burnout before 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic only made the issue worse. The National Academies of Medicine (NAM) reported in 2019 that worker burnout had reached a “crisis level,” and that during the pandemic, half of all healthcare workers reported symptoms of at least one mental health condition.

Training Programs Needed to Offset Worker Shortages and Retain Staff

As Bator reported in Daily Nurse, “The American Society of Clinical Pathology (ASCP)—the largest association for [medical] laboratory professionals—has stressed the importance of promoting MLS/MLT programs to produce certified, well-trained lab professionals, to fill major staffing shortages. However, filling the positions is only one piece of the puzzle.”

Bator points out that there wasn’t space nor time for guidance or advancement with the sheer volume of SARS-CoV-2 testing they had to complete.

“Late last year, during the worst of the Omicron variant surge, the only people I could commiserate with were the nurses who thanked us for running their pediatric ICU tests first,” she said. “They understood what we meant when we said we were drowning and stopped calling the lab to pester us for results because they knew that the positivity rate in Cuyahoga County was the third highest in the country and that the entire system was overwhelmed.”

Suzanna Bator is just one early-career worker among many healthcare professionals who have experienced this type of burnout due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As made evident by her piece, the pathology and clinical laboratory professions are losing workers who otherwise might have entered training programs to further their careers in those fields.

The issue of worker burnout is not just a temporary stressor on the clinical laboratory industry. Both worker burnout and staffing shortages in labs preceded the pandemic and will have continuing long-term effects unless steps are taken to reverse it.   

Ashley Croce

Related Information:

The Hidden Healthcare Heroes: A Lab Techs Journey Through the Pandemic

Burnout: Symptoms and Signs

Christian Siriano and Dov Charney Are Making Masks and Medical Supplies Now

Clinician of the Future Report 2022

New Survey Shows That Up to 47% of US Healthcare Workers Plan to Leave Their Positions by 2025

Taking Action Against Clinician Burnout: A Systems Approach to Professional Well-Being

New Surgeon General Advisory Sounds Alarm on Health Worker Burnout and Resignation

;