After just over a week in isolation, a coughing Kristoffer Hedblom comes out to our scattered and pre-prepared microphone. He is one of just over a hundred of the healthcare staff who cannot be at work because they themselves are affected by covid-19.

"I have besides the cough, headache and muscle pain, so I was tested last week and it showed a positive response, so now the whole family is sitting here at home," says Kristoffer Hedblom, who is a nurse in the medical emergency department at Gävle hospital.

Personnel are easily infected

Kristoffer is far from alone in having been sick in the corona among the staff at the hospitals in the county. According to the infectious disease doctor, about 15 percent of hospital staff have been found to be ill and together with caregivers it is about 130 people.

- Since the hospital staff are close to each other and sick at work, they are obviously more easily infected, so we have to be careful. And we have to do everything to get rid of staff sickness, says infection control physician Signar Mäkitalo.

Mapping and tracing

In order to find out when and how the infected person got his or her infection, the employees are carefully mapped.

- I have been infected with infection. As soon as the test turned out positive, they called and went through who I was in contact with. They think I got infected within the care between 5 and 14 days before it broke out, says Kristoffer Hedlbom.

Do you think you know yourself when you got infected?

- I have no idea actually, I have been in contact with those who have confirmed positive, but then we have had all the routines that we should. So I can't think of any specific occasion when that happened.