COVID‐19 in health‐care workers: Testing and outcomes at a Victorian tertiary children's hospital

In this global pandemic, health-care workers are an invaluable resource. With the state of Victoria, Australia experiencing increasing numbers of COVID-19 cases, the proportion of affected health-care workers remains unclear; as is the source of infection. Health-care workers providing care to children are in a unique situation, primarily because children are less likely to acquire COVID-19 infection, show symptoms and have milder disease compared to adults. To date, children comprise 1891/12 335 (15%) of positive cases in Victoria with those <10 years being the lowest affected age group at 49 cases per 100 000. Specific efforts to minimise exposure to SARS-CoV-2 are critical to protect against nosocomial transmission and frontline health-care workers. The Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne implemented infection prevention and control strategies to reduce the risk of COVID-19 among staff. Individual focused strategies included access to supports such as a dedicated clinic with prioritised testing and result notification, a well-being programme and COVID19 leave. Campus transmission reduction strategies included regular COVID-19 updates from hospital executive on use of personal protective equipment (PPE), access to appropriate PPE, daily staff temperature and symptom screening, supporting work from home, cohorting staff into teams and creating patient zones to reduce unnecessary interaction, as well as expedient internal contact tracing when appropriate. This study aimed to describe COVID-19 testing and infection in health-care workers at the Melbourne Children’s Campus, encompassing Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute and University of Melbourne (Paediatrics) during the first 5 months of the pandemic.