Yesterday, the Victorian government released much-anticipated figures showing the proportion of the state’s health-care workers who caught COVID-19 at work.
Victoria’s chief medical officer Andrew Wilson said yesterday that 70-80% of health workers testing positive to COVID-19 were infected at work. That’s compared with 22% in the first wave.
That figure, which equates to at least 1,600 people infected in the workplace, is shocking and tragic. This is because occupational exposure of health-care workers to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, represents a failing of hazard control in many workplaces — across multiple locations, in hospital and in aged care.
We also need to acknowledge this problem is fundamentally an occupational health and safety issue rather than simply an infectious disease problem. This means experts in occupational health and safety need to be intrinsically involved in recommendations and guidance to government and employers.
What else did the report find?
The report found infection of health-care workers was greatest in areas where there were many patients with COVID-19 being cared for together (known as “cohorting”), and where health-care workers congregated, such as tea rooms.
Other contributing factors were the increased risk associated with putting on and taking off (donning and doffing) personal protective equipment (PPE), staff moving between health-care facilities, and poor ventilation systems with inadequate air flow.
The report said “poor infection control practices were key drivers of worker infection in aged care homes, while in hospitals risks were associated with people removing personal protective equipment (PPE) incorrectly.”
This worries me a bit. https://t.co/BgfHXXbVvD— Stuart Corney (@CorneyStuart) August 25, 2020
The report tells us health-care workers in aged care accounted for around two in five infections, and hospital workers around one-third.
However, further details were not provided. These include the actual number of health-care workers infected at work, and a detailed breakdown of the category of health-care worker infected, as well as their age ranges and gender.
We also don’t know the severity of health-care worker infections (number of people who are or have been hospitalised, in ICU, or died).
How big a problem is this?
The number of health-care workers infected with COVID-19 in Victoria has reached 2,799. That makes a seven-day average of 43 new cases each day.
This means that while the state’s total number of new cases continues to decline, health-care worker infections make up around 30% of new cases each day.
Controlling the number of new health-care worker infections is essential, not only for health-care workers but for the sustainability of our health-care system, and to reduce the overall number of cases.
As the total number of health-care worker infections has risen, key groups representing doctors and nurses have called on the government to produce data on the number of health-care workers infected at work and a breakdown of the data by health-care worker type, age, location and severity.
Yesterday the government released its keenly awaited analysis.
What should we do about it?
In light of the report, the Victorian government has established a new health-care worker infection prevention and well-being taskforce.
This is an important step forward and hopefully includes representation from all expert groups, especially occupation health and safety exerts.
Data from earlier in the year, and indeed prior experiences with SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome), have already given us a blueprint for how to protect health-care workers today.