COVID-19 continues

Editorial: Danielle Ford

Photography: Jesse Wray-McCann

After launching into unprecedented action earlier in the year to help combat the pandemic, Victoria Police continued to rise to the challenge as a second wave of infections gripped the state.

While the police response to the health crisis has continued without pause since the earliest stages of the pandemic in mid-March, it was during the second wave that operations and resources were rolled out at levels never seen before.

It happened quickly, too.

In early June, the number of people contracting the virus was falling daily, bottoming out on 9 June when no new infections were recorded. But less than a month later, on 7 July, new daily case numbers spiked to 191, a figure that exceeded the peak of the first wave by 80 cases.

And just as quickly as the number of infections grew, so too did the police response.

On 4 July, nine public housing towers across Melbourne, home to about 3,000 people, were placed into a hard quarantine in a bid to stop the outbreaks from spreading into the community.

Deputy Commissioner Rick Nugent said the Victorian Government issued detention orders swiftly and a policing operation had to be established overnight.

“We were called upon very quickly to provide security at these sites and in one night we pulled together Operation Benessere, which involved hundreds of police being deployed to the towers,” DC Nugent said.

“Once in place, our members did a fantastic job engaging with the community at the towers.

“These public housing towers have some of our most vulnerable people living in them, with varying and complex needs, and our officers did a great job engaging with the community there and going to community meetings.”

At the same time this operation was being established, 10 postcodes in metropolitan Melbourne were placed under the same stage three restrictions the state had been under earlier in the year, which DC Nugent said created another challenging policing situation.

“This provided a challenge in terms of the number of roads, streets and lanes that connect these areas to neighbouring locations that weren’t under these restrictions,” DC Nugent said.

“We had to quickly develop a policing model that allowed movement through these areas, because several have major arterial roads running through them, while also ensuring people from these areas weren’t leaving and outside people weren’t coming in.”

Road Policing Command assisted the response by establishing booze bus-like operations to check cars travelling in the area and developed Automatic Number Plate Recognition hot-lists to pick up cars moving in these areas that were registered in other postcodes.

The area-specific lockdown lasted less than a week however, with all metropolitan Melbourne Local Government Areas and the Mitchell Shire placed under the Stage 3 restrictions on 8 July.

These restrictions limited the movement of people between regional areas and metropolitan Melbourne and Mitchell Shire and, in response, Victoria Police introduced Operation Sentinel Phase II.

An addition to the original Operation Sentinel, which directly enforced the Chief Health Officer's (CHO) restrictions during the first wave by patrolling public spaces and checking in with businesses, people under quarantine and returned travellers to ensure directions were being adhered to, Phase II saw the establishment of extensive vehicle checkpoints around the affected areas.

Road Policing Command developed the operating model for these checkpoints, which were then managed and resourced by Victoria Police’s four regions.

Western Region Assistant Commissioner Cindy Millen, whose region managed three major checkpoints, said local knowledge played a huge part in the operation.

“Logistically finding an ideal spot to put the checkpoints was a priority,” AC Millen said.

“Finding the balance of community and police safety at these points was difficult. They needed to be on major roads so we could check the most cars, but also in locations where amenities could be set up for our staff.”

AC Millen said while ensuring people weren’t breaching restrictions and travelling between areas was the main focus of the checkpoints, police also used the vehicle stops to identify other crimes.

“Whenever a car was stopped, our members took the opportunity to scan and check for other offences. As a result, police have seized everything from firearms to drugs,” she said.

“Our role as police is to keep the community safe and this was another way during this response we were able to do this.”

Both AC Millen and DC Nugent highlighted the assistance of the Australian Defence Force (ADF) at the checkpoints and noted the increased capability their assistance provided.

“Our officers demonstrated a ‘can-do’ attitude by getting on with what was required of them and with our ADF counterparts, they were working in freezing temperatures at all hours, providing added resources to staff these checkpoints,” AC Millen said.

While the rate of new infections slowed under these new restrictions, case numbers continued to climb.

A total of 723 new cases were detected on 30 July and brought with them the announcement of a new lockdown.

On 2 August, stage four restrictions were introduced for metropolitan Melbourne.

Reasons to leave home were reduced to just four; shopping for essentials, exercise for no more than one hour, permitted work and caregiving. Melbourne residents also had to stay within five kilometres of their home address while out for one of the permitted purposes, while the wearing of face coverings when outside the home became mandatory across the state.

For Melbourne residents, a curfew was also introduced between the hours of 8pm and 5am, a measure never before seen in the state’s capital, even during war time.

“This was a huge change in our policing model as we had to be able to have a heightened presence on the streets between these hours,” DC Nugent said.

Police introduced Operation Sentinel 250, which involved the reallocation of 250 Transit police and Protective Services Officers (PSOs) from nearly-empty train stations across metropolitan Melbourne to the streets.

“During this pandemic, our PSOs have gone from train stations, to hotels, to shopping precincts to street patrols and they’ve done a fantastic job providing that extra visibility help to enforce these restrictions,” DC Nugent said.

Stage three restrictions also returned to regional Victoria and, at the state borders, Victoria Police worked with its counterparts from South Australia and New South Wales to control movement.

Thankfully, the measures were effective and the number of new cases began to fall. From a peak of 725 new infections on August 5, they fell to 410 on August 13.

By the beginning of September, cases were down to double digits and assessments on reopening the state were being made.

DC Nugent said Victoria Police’s steadfast role in enforcing the CHO directions had been and continues to be critical.

“For us to be at a stage where we can all get back to going about our normal lives, we need to see cases drop,” he said.

DC Nugent said Victoria Police’s response during the various stages of the pandemic had highlighted the organisation’s ability to quickly respond to emergencies.

“We respond to major demonstrations that occur very quickly, we respond to emergencies, road accidents and a whole range of other incidents very quickly all year round,” he said.

“Our ability to change our operating model and adapt when called upon has been highlighted greatly in this pandemic.”