What’s been particularly noticeable about the progress of the Chinese virus pandemic in Australia is that the worst clusters of outbreaks are directly associated with the incompetence of those at the top. The North-West Regional Hospital in Tasmania and the nursing home in Western Sydney. The Ruby Princess debacle, especially, was directly enabled by governmental incompetence, followed by furious blame-shifting and responsibility-dodging.
One of the worst outbreaks in the Australian state of Victoria erupted from a meatworks in inner western Melbourne, whose identity was kept secret for weeks despite being linked to dozens of cases. Purely coincidentally, no doubt, the abattoir owners have deep links to the governing Labor Party.
The Victorian Department of Health and Human Services confirmed on Sunday a meat processing facility had been linked to 15 cases of COVID-19, but refused to name Cedar Meats in Melbourne’s west, despite on the same day revealing Meadowglen Primary School in Melbourne’s north had been linked to one case.
On Monday, the department revealed a further 19 cases at the Brooklyn meatworks, after Cedar Meats’ owners confirmed the facility was at the centre of the cluster.
The infection was allowed to spread from the meatworks for weeks, thanks to Victorian bureaucrats.
One of Victoria’s largest outbreaks of COVID-19 was given a three-week headstart following a major oversight by the state’s Health Department.
The Australian can reveal health authorities decided that a Melbourne abattoir was “not considered an exposure site” because the first infected employee “had not been at work while infectious”.
The Department of Health and Human Services on Tuesday night confirmed the first case of COVID-19 linked to the Melbourne abattoir Cedar Meats was diagnosed on April 2 — three weeks before a second case was identified as part of a cluster which has now reached 45 infections.
The Tuesday night statement from the DHHS represents a dramatic change in its public position on the meatworks cluster. Previously, it had claimed the first positive was detected on April 24.
Oddly enough, the government story just keeps changing.
Mr Andrews said the naming of organisations at the centre of COVID-19 clusters was a decision for DHHS, despite Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton last week telling radio host Neil Mitchell that the decision was “really both” a government and DHHS decision.
So, why would the Victorian government be giving the appearance of covering up?
Australian Electoral Commission records show Cedar Meats made a $15,000 donation to the Victorian ALP in 2014. Premier Daniel Andrews said he had “no idea about those matters” when asked about the donation on Monday, referring questions to the ALP’s state secretariat.
Apparently Andrews wasn’t paying much attention in parliament when he was Opposition Leader, back in 2010.
The personal links between the family at the centre of Victoria’s worst coronavirus cluster and the state government go back more than a decade.
The Australian can reveal that when one of the founders of Cedar Meats died in 2010, three MPs who are now part of the Andrews government paid tribute with condolence motions in parliament.
Upper House MP Nazih Elasmar went so far as to describe Samir Kairouz as “more than a brother to me”.
Still, the government and the bureaucrats are sticking to their story.
Professor Sutton defended the decision not to name Cedar Meats. “It has always been the case that if we need people in the community to understand where they might have been exposed to a cluster or an outbreak in cases, that we identify those sites,” he said.
Apparently, nurses in the age group particularly vulnerable to COVID-19 don’t need to know when they’re being exposed to the deadly disease.
A nurse infected with COVID-19 while treating a Cedar Meats worker with a severed thumb was left exposed because authorities had not alerted the hospital that another worker at the Melbourne abattoir had tested positive 22 days earlier[…]The nurse, aged in her 60s, treated the worker during three consecutive shifts on April 24, 25 and 26, but was not required to wear PPE to protect her from possible COVID-19 infection until the third shift.
She experienced symptoms last Friday and received confirmation on Sunday that she had tested positive to COVID-19.
I guess it’s a “need to know thing”: nobody needs to know that Labor-connected businesses are spreading the Xi Plague. Now, shut up and stay home and do as you’re told.
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