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Friday, July 24th, 2020
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HEALTH SERVICES’ PLEA - STAY HOME By Chris Michaels and JessieAnne Gartlan
WIMMERA Health Care Group has raised concerns that people who have been tested for COVID-19 are going out and socialising instead of going home to self-isolate until results come back. Communications manager Peter Miller said anyone waiting for results must self-isolate until they receive those results, otherwise they were potentially putting the community at risk. “We have people going to the shops,” he said. “We are hearing of many cases like that of people going out after being tested. “They must go straight home. And it means not having visitors coming over, or going to someone else’s house.” Mr Miller said the Wimmera Base Hospital continued to be inundated with calls about COVID-19 testing after the first active case since April was recorded in Horsham last week. Since then the Department of Health and Human Services’ daily figures have swung between three and four active cases, which the department stated was due to reclassification and the doubling up of data. At the time of writing on Wednesday, department figures showed there were four active cases in Horsham, and no active cases in neighbouring municipalities. Member for Lowan Emma Kealy called for more clarity around the reporting process amidst community concern and confusion
over the active cases. Ms Kealy said the current system of reporting a confirmed COVID-19 case by local government area alone – based on a person’s residential address, rather than their current
location – was misleading. “Last week, our electorate recorded confirmed cases for the first time in months,” she said. “Community members are deeply concerned about whether these
people were residing in our area or outside of it at the time of testing positive. “Our community also has no way of knowing how or where these cases of COVID-19 were acquired
and whether they are related. This lack of detail is driving uncertainty, fear and rumours, none of which are helpful as we work to stop the spread of this virus.” • CONT. PAGE 2
NEW SURPRISES UNVEILED AT TOY LIBRARY
THE region’s children had the chance to play with some new toys after the Wimmera Toy Library opened its doors for the first time since March. Volunteers set up COVID-19 protocols to ensure that the service could be run safely on Saturday morning and volunteer Jacqui Norris said they were well supported by the turn-out. Full story - Page 23
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