Narrative:

This took place during the special staffing for covid-19 and I was on position at a very busy sector; I was about 30-45 minutes into my shift. I split off this sector due to the large number of aircraft in the airspace at that time; there were about ten on the frequency with at least ten more on 1200 codes in about a 15-20 mile area of airspace. I was speaking as clearly and quickly as I could; and calling traffic and issuing VFR instructions and assigning altitudes and I was aware of just one IFR aircraft on the frequency. I completely missed that aircraft X was IFR and when they checked in; I told them to advise the weather and maintain VFR at or above 045; due to all the other traffic; I gave him traffic calls and various assignments for VFR altitudes; all of which the pilot read back as VFR instructions. Normally; this aircraft operates VFR; especially when conditions are very good VFR; and I don't know if there was datablock overlap; but I did not realize that he was IFR until I turned him onto the final approach course; I normally give radar vectors for approaches to these flight school aircraft for practice approaches. When I moved the datablock; I realized it was IFR and I apologized to the pilot after asking whether he was IFR (since he answered all my VFR instructions); and I later found out that when he passed by the only IFR aircraft I was working (aircraft Y) that they were separated by 2.92. I feel badly that I missed the datablock; although I also feel that I was working very hard with high complexity and I ended up terminating flight following to a few aircraft due to the number of aircraft on frequency and in the airspace. I feel like the situation was controlled and I just missed that his datablock was IFR because I had so many aircraft on frequency and in the airspace.I would just normally have had a handoff or extra set of eyes watching me if I was working this amount of traffic at this sector; but due to our staffing situation with covid-19; we have just a few controllers per shift.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: TRACON Controller working COVID-19 schedule reported a loss of separation between two IFR aircraft while accidentally providing VFR instructions to one of the aircraft.

Narrative: This took place during the special staffing for COVID-19 and I was on position at a very busy sector; I was about 30-45 minutes into my shift. I split off this sector due to the large number of aircraft in the airspace at that time; there were about ten on the frequency with at least ten more on 1200 codes in about a 15-20 mile area of airspace. I was speaking as clearly and quickly as I could; and calling traffic and issuing VFR instructions and assigning altitudes and I was aware of just one IFR aircraft on the frequency. I completely missed that Aircraft X was IFR and when they checked in; I told them to advise the weather and maintain VFR at or above 045; due to all the other traffic; I gave him traffic calls and various assignments for VFR altitudes; all of which the pilot read back as VFR instructions. Normally; this aircraft operates VFR; especially when conditions are very good VFR; and I don't know if there was datablock overlap; but I did not realize that he was IFR until I turned him onto the final approach course; I normally give radar vectors for approaches to these flight school aircraft for practice approaches. When I moved the datablock; I realized it was IFR and I apologized to the pilot after asking whether he was IFR (since he answered all my VFR instructions); and I later found out that when he passed by the only IFR aircraft I was working (Aircraft Y) that they were separated by 2.92. I feel badly that I missed the datablock; although I also feel that I was working very hard with high complexity and I ended up terminating flight following to a few aircraft due to the number of aircraft on frequency and in the airspace. I feel like the situation was controlled and I just missed that his datablock was IFR because I had so many aircraft on frequency and in the airspace.I would just normally have had a handoff or extra set of eyes watching me if I was working this amount of traffic at this sector; but due to our staffing situation with COVID-19; we have just a few controllers per shift.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.