Image copyright Getty Images Image caption The infection has an unusually long incubation period
As doctors work under threat and look to government, they could soon have a much more intimate partner in the form of the “great resignation”.
Nurses, too, are refusing to provide emergency services, with many unable to report to work and some resigning from their posts.
Three in four practice nurses, doctors, laboratory technicians and emergency health assistants have said they plan to quit their posts because of quarantine.
Employers warn the move will damage the NHS.
And it came as a charity warned that doctors and nurses in Britain were the most resolute of any in Europe.
Patients ‘could die’
According to the Association of Healthcare Providers’ monthly employment survey, 73% of the doctors it surveyed and 60% of the nurses said they would choose not to work at hospitals in Britain.
The last survey, in October 2017, saw only 58% of doctors and 40% of nurses saying they planned to quit.
In both cases, the start and end points in the survey period was from three to nine months before the findings were revealed.
The latest survey also found that 85% of its member managers were ‘not comfortable’ about staff going against orders to visit patients at home or in their own homes, with 73% saying it made them ‘very uncomfortable’.
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption The infection is being transmitted through hospital-acquired air pollution, which includes dust
Earlier in April, the BBC reported that nurses would not return to work for up to a year.
The hospital-acquired pneumonia virus is a strain of the pneumococcal bacteria.
It can cause pneumonia, which in severe cases can kill the lungs, and meningitis, which can cripple and even kill a child.