Coronavirus: aged-care influx ‘led to huge health worker cluster’

A large, sudden influx of coronavirus-positive aged-care residents contributed to Australia’s biggest health worker cluster, according to a Medical Journal paper.

People queing at a coronavirus test at Royal Melbourne Hospital. Picture: Tony Gough

A large, sudden influx of coronavirus-positive aged-care residents contributed to Australia’s biggest health worker cluster of 262 cases of coronavirus among Royal Melbourne Hospital staff in July and August, according to the authors of a paper published in the Medical Journal of Australia on Monday.

The authors, led by RMH infectious diseases physician Kirsty Buising, found the hospital “rapidly controlled” the spread of coronavirus by adapting measures to target settings and demographics within the facility.

Of 262 staff identified as having the virus between July 1 and August 31, 15 (5.7 per cent) required inpatient care and 13 (4.9 per cent) received care via a “hospital in the home” service, while two were admitted to intensive care. None died.

Nurses were most commonly affected, followed by support staff and doctors. “The Royal Park Campus had the highest number of staff with COVID-19, making up 40.8 per cent of healthcare worker infections at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, despite this campus constituting about 10 per cent of the total staff workforce at the hospital,” the authors wrote.

“Between 12 and 18 July, the campus received a large number of patients from external residential aged-care facilities … with COVID-19 outbreaks. These residents were positive at admission and managed with appropriate infection precautions (but) COVID-19 cases among staff rapidly escalated across all six wards after 16 July.”