# Two years of COVID-19 outbreaks in residential care facilities: quantifying workload impact of outbreak control activities on a regional public health team in Ireland, March 2020 to March 2022

## TL;DR

This study examines the workload of public health teams in Ireland managing COVID-19 outbreaks in residential care facilities over two years.

## Contribution

The study quantifies the time and resources spent on outbreak control activities by public health teams in Ireland.

## Key findings

- 224 outbreaks occurred in residential care facilities, involving 4211 cases and 263 deaths.
- 374 OCT meetings were held, with clinical staff spending approximately 1819 hours on outbreak-related work.
- These efforts likely prevented infections, hospitalizations, and deaths but strained public health resources.

## Abstract

Ireland, like many countries, pursued a containment strategy during the initial stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Multidisciplinary Outbreak Control Team (OCT) meetings were among the urgent measures used by public health teams in managing COVID-19 outbreaks, especially in high-risk settings.

To describe and quantify the resources and person-time involved in managing outbreaks, and conducting OCT meetings, in older person Residential Care Facilities (RCF) in an Irish regional Department of Public Health (DePH) during the first 2 years of the COVID-19 pandemic.

All COVID-19 RCF outbreaks managed by the DePH HSE-South between March 2020 and March 2022 were identified. Data pertaining to each outbreak, including details of any OCT meetings (frequency, membership, duration) were extracted. Clinical staff members of the DePH were surveyed regarding their time spent on RCF outbreak management.

Two hundred twenty-four outbreaks in older persons RCFs occurred between March 2020 and March 2022 in Cork and Kerry, accounting for 4211 COVID-19 resident/staff cases and 263 resident COVID deaths. One hundred twenty (53.5%) of the outbreaks required at least one OCT meeting, with 374 OCT meetings held in total (range 1–29 meetings per outbreak). Approximately 1819 hours were spent by clinical public health staff on RCF outbreak-related work.

While substantial DePH resources were required to manage COVID-19 outbreaks in older person RCFs, it is highly likely that these efforts prevented new infections within RCFs and thus reduced hospitalisations, ICU admissions and deaths. This sustained input placed a significant burden on the wider multidisciplinary public health team, and it affected the department’s capacity to deal with competing health threats and priorities. Future pandemic preparedness requires commensurate resource planning for public health teams.