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1 JUNE, 2021
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Kids help fight MND
Willow, 4, with parents Jarrod and Samantha Macdonald and a photo of her grandma who passed away from MND. (Damjan Janevski) 238584_02
A simple question from a child has sparked a fundraising campaign at a Mernda child care centre. Maples Early Learning Centre is raising money for charity FightMND after the grandmother of one of the centre’s children died as a result of motor neurone disease (MND) last year. Maples assistant director Hayley George said the centre decided to host a fundraiser in honour of grandmother Wendy following a chat with the children. “After discussions with the children, one child asked why can’t we just give them money to make a medicine,” Ms George said. “As a group we decided to try and raise $10,000 for the FightMND campaign.” FightMND is a charity founded in 2014 aiming to find effective treatments and a cure for MND. Ms George said the community is invited to attend their official fundraising event on Thursday, July 17. Educators will be dunked in the ice tank, [and there will be] a sausage sizzle, CFA fire truck visit and market stalls. Details: https://hub.fightmnd.org.au/ diy-big-freeze/maples-early-learning
Rush for COVID-19 jab Seven hundred students and staff at a Craigieburn school are in isolation after a student tested positive for COVID-19. The health department announced the positive result on Saturday, with the school’s prinicpal writing to students and their families to ask them to get tested. It is believed the student last attended school on May 25. As of Sunday, there were 49 active cases in Victoria, of which 23 were linked to City of Whittlesea outbreak, 17 to the Port Melbourne outbreak and one case linked to Arcare at Maidstone. The City of Whittlesea had recorded 19 active cases of as of Sunday: 13 in Epping,
two in each of Thomastown and Bundoora and one in each of Lalor and Mernda/Doreen. There were three actives cases in Hume: one in postcode 3064 (Craigieburn, Roxburgh Park, Mickleham, Donnybrook and Kalkallo), one in Greenvale and one in postcode 3043 (Gladstone Park and Tullamarine). Fifty-three sites across Whittlesea and Hume had been identified as tier one exposure sites as of Sunday, including eight supermarkets, La Trobe University and a bus route. Forty-two sites were listed as tier two, while one site was listed as tier three. A large number of the exposure sites are linked to a food distribution centre employee who visited several food stores across
Melbourne on May 18 and 19 while infectious, the health department said. The surge in cases in the northern suburbs prompted thousands of Whittlesea and Hume residents to get tested last week, while thousands more were vaccinated. Northern Health said it processed more than 5000 tests last week. A spokesperson said more than 2500 people booked to receive a COVID vaccination at Northern Hospital between Monday and Thursday last week. The health department set up a number of new testing sites across Whittlesea and Hume last week to keep up with demand as waiting times surged to four hours at some locations. They are at Campbellfield Community
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Centre, Campbellfield; Epping Memorial Hall, Epping; and Mosaic Pavilion, Lalor. Whittlesea council chief executive Craig Lloyd urged everyone who had been at exposure sites or had COVID symptoms to get tested. Mr Lloyd said officials believed there were people who had symptoms or who had attended exposure sites who had yet to be tested. “We still think there might be a lot of people who have not been tested or who are putting it down to the sniffles,” he said. A new mass vaccination clinic opened at the Plenty Ranges Arts and Convention Centre last Tuesday, while another opened at Town Hall Broadmeadows on Friday. Both sites are run by DPV Health.
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By Laura Michell