Victoria had fewer new cases of Covid19 yesterday than New South Wales. With only 203 active cases, there is no reason why Daniel Andrews can’t open more of Melbourne’s economy, except Victoria has the worst contact tracing and information sharing of any state in Australia.
The Department of Health’s(DHHS) hugely discredited permanent secretary Kym Peake, has lost all credibility and should have followed the hapless former Health Minister Jenny Mikakos out the door.
I can’t find a better example, with cases now so low, of how atrocious the Andrews government stillis at managing the virus, than the debacle that occurred at Leo’s supermarket in Hartwell this week.
It took five full days for the Department of Health to inform Leo’s management that someone who had tested positive had shopped at their store.
Leo’s management was concerned about their customers and staff, but the Department of Health said a“deep clean” was unnecessary, and that only “touch” surfaces should be wiped down. Only staff with symptoms should be tested, they were told.
Leo’s disregarded this advice and proceeded with a “deep clean.” All staff were advised of the situation and monitored for symptoms.
Extraordinarily, when Leo’s requested the cashier docket from the infected customer, in order to identify and alert the specific cashier who served the customer, this information was denied by the Department, on the grounds of privacy. (The cashier’s name appears on the bottom of the docket)
DHHS initially deemed this incident at Leo’s as “low risk,” presumably because the amount of time the infected person spent in the store was low.
So, it came as quite a shock to Leo’s when their store appeared on the DHHS website as a “high risk location”, and as having not one, but two separate incidents at the Hartwell store. No one from DHHS contacted Leo’s, they learnt this from the media. DHHS has since retracted one of the reported incidents, as it was simply incorrect, but the damage to Leo’s reputation had already been done.
Leo’s is still deemed a high-risk location, despite conducting a full hospital grade disinfection using thermal fogging. Leo’s has spent literally hours on the phone trying to speak to whomever is in charge of this farce at DHHS.
This whole sorry story indicates the chaos that must be prevailing within the contact tracing unit in DHHS. How on earth can we have any confidence of the Andrews government’s ability to manage this virus, before there is a vaccine, whilst continuing to open up the state, as New South Wales has successfully done for months?
Victoria must be able to isolate those with the virus, and second, be able to trace with whom they’d had contact.
Seven out of eight Australian states and territories are able to do this, only Daniel Andrews’ Victoria continues to fail.