Goya Dmytryshchak and Tate Papworth
A growing coronavirus cluster at Brooklyn-based Cedar Meats has been linked to infected workers at a Footscray aged care home and Sunshine Hospital.
The meat processing plant located in Brimbank had been linked to 71 new COVID-19 cases as at Friday and also accounted for a rise in active cases – where a person hasn’t yet recovered – in several neighbouring municipalities.
As at Friday, Maribyrnong had 15 cases and Hobsons Bay 18, including nine active in total.
The number of cases within Brimbank has leapt by more than 20 in the past fortnight, with 56 now confirmed. There are currently 18 active cases within the municipality, the highest number in the state.
Wyndham had 46 cases, including 14 active.
Health Minister Jenny Mikakos confirmed an infected worker at Doutta Galla Aged Care in Footscray was “a close contact of a worker at Cedar Meats”.
The aged care employee last worked at the facility on April 26, Doutta Galla Aged Services said in a statement.
“There is not an outbreak nor a COVID-19 cluster, and no resident or staff are showing signs of infection,” Doutta Galla said.
“We continue to practice enhanced infection control and cleaning protocols.
“In addition to the extra cleaning we had already implemented some weeks ago, a daily deep and detailed clean of the whole facility has commenced.
“Additional staff have been brought in to support the home as we continue to provide the highest standard of care and support to our residents.”
Two dozen staff at Sunshine Hospital were forced to self isolate after a worker from the factory who came in for emergency surgery on a severed thumb later tested positive for the virus.
Western Health chief executive Russell Harrison on Wednesday confirmed a hospital worker tested positive.
“Unfortunately one of the Western Health staff members in self-quarantine following exposure to a patient who was later diagnosed with COVID-19, has since tested positive for the virus,“ he said.
“Western Health is providing all the necessary supports for the staff member, who continues to self- isolate at home and we will continue to liaise closely with them.“
Premier Daniel Andrews defended his government’s handling of the outbreak.
“I am very proud in the public health team in the response that they have provided to every positive case and this outbreak was singled out by Brendan Murphy, the Chief Medical Officer of the Commonwealth singled this out at national cabinet as a model example of how to deal with an outbreak,“ Mr Andrews said.
The first case within the abattoir was confirmed a month ago.
The government was told the infected worker had told them they had not been at work for a number of weeks.
Mr Andrews said he had no reason to think the government was provided false information.
“Regardless of where you work, if you say, ’I have not been to work for four weeks’, then we take you on face value. The assumption is that people are giving us the accurate story,“ he said.
“If we assume that everyone wasn’t, I don’t know if we could ever have enough contact tracers. We wouldn’t need 1000, we would need 100,000 perhaps. It would become impossible.“
