By Alesha Capone and Tara Murray
A new report has found that transmission of COVID-19 during Victoria’s second pandemic wave mostly occurred in disadvantaged areas of Melbourne, which have a high rate of casual workers.
A public accounts and estimates committee inquiry into the state government’s handling of the pandemic, which was tabled in state parliament last week, said that the five municipalities which had the most active COVID-19 cases as of December 1 – Wyndham, Brimbank, Hume, Whittlesea and Melton – were among the 10 most disadvantaged councils in Victoria.
“These five council areas also had a higher percentage of insecure work than most other parts of Victoria,” the report said.
The inquiry found that the pandemic highlighted the issues faced by casual and insecure workers who are not entitled to formal leave arrangements.
The report said that to help address this, the 2020-21 state budget contained $5 million for the development and consultation required to finalise the design of a transition to secure work scheme to provide sick and carers leave at the national minimum wage for casual or insecure workers in priority industries.
The inquiry also found that as of November 30, there had been 88 outbreaks of COVID-19 in Victorian school settings, which were linked to 977 cases of the virus.
“The Al-Taqwa College outbreak in Truganina is one of the largest COVID-19 clusters Victoria has experienced, with 210 cases confirmed as at 18 August 2020,” the report said.
“The next largest outbreak in a Victorian government school was of just 15 cases.”
The report listed all the outbreaks of COVID-19 reported in Wyndham last year.
During the second wave on June 24, 34 cases of the virus were linked to a food distribution business.
Across the next two weeks, several more cases were linked to locations in Wyndham, including 109 at an aged care facility on July 5.
On July 16, 260 cases were linked to another Wyndham aged care facility.
Forty-four cases were linked to a Wyndham hospital and another 96 cases to a local aged care facility on July 28.
On August 17, 20 cases were found to be connected to an additional needs school in Wyndham.
