My concern, and I'm sure it's a concern of others, is the opening of schools is necessary, but it also represents a huge risk of coronavirus spreading in the community. When I read the statement from the principal of the East Preston Islamic College, it does appear, probably for privacy reasons, important information is not being shared by the DHHS.
https://www.epic.vic.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/EPIC-Release-23102020-1.pdf
More can and does need to be done by the DHHS. Most schools now have a nurse on staff (East Preston Islamic College from their site appears to) and we can expect nurses to treat personal information of students as confidential. The principal doesn't even need to be informed of the details, short of perhaps letting them know the nurse is looking after an issue.
What seems to be lacking in this case is a personal schedule for the family where each member of the family is given a timeline of what is expected of them. Printed and explained. Then before any person in the family is able to return to school, the school nurses can make sure the students have been cleared for returning to school.
There is no reason this case should have occurred. It's is not the family's fault. I for one find knowing what I can do, or can't do at times quite difficult. The information provided by the government appears obscure at the best of times. Try calling someone to find out the answers and it's near impossible to get in contact with someone.
Right now the cases are extremely low. In fact so low each case could easily have a single person dedicated to the case. The idea that people will get obscure text messages from possibly private or unknown numbers just doesn't work in today's society, where you can't trust messages and calls from unknown numbers. Scammers right now are taking advantage of the situation.
This would have to be another EPIC failure of the DHHS which is a real pity. You would think after so many months of dealing with COVID-19 things like people going to school when they're potentially infected shouldn't occur. The fact that it did occur isn't the fault of the family. It's a fault of the system currently in place that enabled it to happen.
Kelvin Eldridge
www.Mapz.com.au/coronavirusvictoria/
Update: 25 October 2020
9 News has a very good graphic showing the 11 households involved in the East Preston Islamic College outbreak. It is interesting to see how the outbreak originated at a hospital and has now impacted two aged care facilities (staff only at this point). The aged care facilities for the graphic are Regis Macleod and Estia Keilor. Whilst it would be a guess, the hospital outbreak is probably Box Hill. (26/10/2020 Now confirmed worker from Box Hill hospital who contracted virus from patient. Worker worked across wards infecting another staff member and patient.) The Royal Children's and Alfred have had cases around the time but based on location less likely.
What the graphic makes you ponder is the number of households involved. The graphic may suggest households are linked with no other connection, which may suggest households visiting each other. If this is the case, and there's no evidence given it is, it is an important example of why we should not meet each other indoors.
It's also interesting to see how many people in the one household become infected. If there's an infected person in the house it really isn't wise for everyone else to be around the infected person. Earlier stats I read indicated a person will infect 25% of people in the household before they know they're infected. After they know they're infected they're likely to infect 50% of people in the household. Of the 11 households 9 have cases, with three having the entire family infected. The longer families are together the more likely the entire family becomes infected and more cases occur.
If you think about Victoria's lockdown strategy of reopening once the state reaches 5 cases per day (14 day average), one case in a household can lead to other cases even if they're all in quarantine and there's thus no risk to the community. Just numbers of cases increasing. This cluster is 33 cases over 18 days which is nearly 2 cases per day. The hospital outbreak where this started could easily keep the entire state in lockdown. That doesn't make sense since contacts and contacts of contacts can (or should) in theory be quickly identified and quarantined.
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