NEW YORK - Almost one in five health care workers have chosen to quit since the COVID-19 pandemic began, Fox News quoted a recent report of the Atlantic as saying.

The industry lost approximately half a million workers since February 2020, said the article released on Saturday, using data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Many health care workers explained that "the final straw" for resignation was not the virus per se, said the article, but the great dissatisfaction in how their institutions responded to it, adding that they have been working with little say under strenuous working conditions for inadequate pay.