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FRIDAY, January 14, 2022
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DREAM ALIVE FOR DANCERS LOCAL dancers Mikayla Nesbitt, 15, and Jasmin Thwaites, 14, together with the Signets dance troupe from Danzworx, are making their way to Queensland today to compete at the Australian National titles. After a year of interruptions and disappointment due to COVID-related cancellations, getting to compete at the national event is a dream come true for the hard working dancers. Full story page 7 PHOTO: Leah Anderson-Byrne
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Hundreds Hun to sseek ‘treasure’ ‘tre in c city Page 5
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COVID CRUNCH 301 Wangaratta g people p p in isolation: health system, y , businesses lashed
STAFF shortages are impacting Wangaratta’s public hospital with up to 70 employees away from duty on any given day due to isolation requirements. The total number of active cases in Wangaratta as of yesterday was 301, with 56 new cases reported for the rural city yesterday. Wangaratta businesses are also struggling to manage staff shortages
BY STEVE KELLY skelly@ nemedia.com.au
due to isolation rules connected to close contacts with several reducing hours of operation. Several Northeast Health Wangaratta (NHW) staff have COVID-19 and others are close contacts
of positive cases on surveillance unable to attend work. The asymptomatic staff of close contacts can attend work, however, they have to undertake a rapid antigen test prior to work each day for five days to make sure they haven’t got COVID. They will also have to isolate when they get home from work, unable
to partake in recreational activities outside the home over the five-day period. “We continue to do category 1 elective surgery but we have reduced our elective surgery because that frees up both beds and staff to make sure we can respond to acute attendances,” NHW acting chief executive officer Robyn Gillis said. “While patients have
presented to the hospital with COVID the majority initially attended with other health conditions and they happened to have COVID as well. “We have had to look after those people but there are no positive cases in the hospital at the moment.” Ms Gillis said the people off work at the moment range from cooks, cleaners, maintenance
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workers, nurses and doctors. “As a couple of staff come off today, new ones go on so the 70 employees is a rolling average,” she said. Premier Daniel Andrews urged people to get their third dose of the COVID-19 vaccine with 250,000 appointment timeslots currently available across the state. ■ Continued page 2