At the height of the COVID-19 outbreak in Sydney’s Dorothy Henderson Lodge nursing home, staff were going through 800 sets of personal protective equipment (PPE) a day, a report on the cluster says. 

Staff were exhausted by the stressful, difficult conditions and “unsuprisingly” infection control lapses occurred, according to a Medical Journal of Australia case study of the event which started on 3 March.

By the time the outbreak was over in early May, nearly one in four (22%) of the 76 residents had been infected, 12 had been admitted to hospital, and six had died.

Infectious diseases expert Professor Gwendolyn Gilbert writes the experience provided a number of lessons on how to handle the virus in aged care.