NSW Covid: the Fairfield residents living in the second wave’s hotspot
Fairfield has become the epicentre of covid’s second Sydney wave and its residents - from doctors, to teachers and parents - are doing it tough. These are their stories.
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The southwest Sydney area of Fairfield is known as a melting pot - a working class area where family is the meaning of life. It has never been more in the spotlight than in July when NSW experienced its second wave of Covid cases and it hit the region hard.
The NSW government sent 100 extra police into southwest Sydney to manage “compliance” issues after a sharp rise in new cases - into double figures - many of whom had been in the community while infectious.
This tough stance was met with claims of discrimination, which the police and the Government denied.
“This isn’t what happened in Bondi,” is the phrase you heard again and again from locals.
Although the government suggested the rise in cases in southwest Sydney was the result of bigger households, a vaster definition of the family unit, a large number of essential workers and non-English speakers, others in the community suggested it was the lack of a multicultural Covid contingency plan.
The government’s messages were not getting to non-English speakers early enough.
Fairfield was the local government area that felt the brunt of this.
On July 13, as numbers in Fairfield continued to soar, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian announced any essential worker going in or out of the Fairfield Local Government Area must get tested for Covid at least every three days.
This sent the region’s testing centres into chaos, with residents waiting up to six hours for a test, before more 24-hour clinics were frantically added by the NSW Government.
The concentration of cases in the region is still being seen.
On Thursday, southwest Sydney accounted for 46 of the 65 new Covid cases in NSW; on Wednesday, 70 of the 97 newly reported cases; on Tuesday, 64 of the 89 new Covid cases.
With a large proportion of essential workers, construction workers and small business owners, nowhere is the angst and stress of Covid lockdown more magnified than in Fairfield.
While the rest of NSW watches anxiously over the next few days, the people of Fairfield have to go about their lives - homeschooling, working and staying safe.
These are the people on the frontline.
Dr Brian Cung, Canley Heights general practitioner
When Dr Brian Cung gets home of an evening, he streamlines to the laundry room, takes off all his outer layers, and has a quick shower.
He then joins his wife and two teenage kids in the various rooms of their house.
Just like he did when Covid first erupted last year, this is his ritual of precaution.
Dr Cung owns a general practice in Canley Heights, but lives in the inner west.
He said when infection rates increased, he began to worry about bringing the virus home again.
At his practice, he wears full PPE (personal protection equipment), as is now recommended – a mask, gown, the whole bit.
“From the start of Covid last year, it was very concerning when you turn up to work and someone is coughing and you think, I hope it’s not a Covid case. But you learn to live with it,” he said.
“But I know my role as a general practitioner.”
He said he feels safer knowing that more people in Fairfield are aware of the problem and getting tested more frequently now.
Dr Cung, who is also the medical advisor for Vietnamese Community in Australia, said his majority-Vietnamese patients are often stoic but he could see the community was stressed.
He said he expected to see more people presenting with symptoms of depression in the coming weeks and months.
“For those of the Vietnamese background, they tend not to show (their emotions) too much,” he said.
“Until they have symptoms of depression – insomnia, loss of motivation, and if severe, even suicidal thoughts.”
“The patients I see presenting with depression is not increasing yet, but I know that will be the problem if the lockdown continues.
“Particularly in Canley Heights, there are lots of small businesses. Lots of restaurants. Of course they are heavily affected.
”I see patients every day. Normal people, business people, cafe owners. I think they are under a lot of stress.”
Dr Cung also has a medical practice in Rockdale, where he works a few days a week, and he said the feeling was much different there.
“It’s different because Rockdale is not quite a hot spot. People seem more relaxed. Sometimes I have to remind them to comply with the rules,” he said.
Sami Odeesho, Iraqi refugee and builder
Fairfield West tradie Sami Odeesho isn’t fazed by the stricter rules that come with living in the most severely Covid-hit hot spot in the nation.
Despite being forced to get tested at Club Marconi instead of enduring long queues at Fairfield showground and the hospital this week, the 35-year-old construction worker has taken it all in his stride.
Mr Odeesho has been employed on a construction site at Concord Hospital and has worked in the field for a year. He now gets tested every three days at the hospital site.
He lives with his mother Asmar Adam and father Khoshaba Zaya in the Covid epicentre. He wears a mask on the job but his mother often wears one inside their red brick home.
“We go out, we wear the mask everywhere,’’ Mr Odeesho said.
“I wear the masks 24 hours, sometimes I go shopping (if) Mum needs something for food. I go quickly and come back ... I’m waiting to do the injection (Covid vaccine).’’
Mr Odeesho, is one of six children, who fled a country in conflict. His Christian family fled northern Iraq in 2014 to escape the ISIS threat and spent two years in Jordan before arriving in Australia in 2016.
When he’s not on the job, Mr Odeesho said he wasn’t bothered to be in lockdown.
“It doesn’t matter, it’s OK for us. We stay home,’’ he said.
Assyrian Resource Centre program manager Carmen Lazar said that in 2018, of the 12,000-intake of Iraqi and Syrian refugees to arrive in NSW, 7000 settled in Fairfield.
Which is why Mr Odeesho’s positive outlook on the outbreak and the forced lockdown mirrored the experience of many refugees who have found a home in Fairfield.
“They’ve been through torture, trauma, coming to Australia, they think ‘Oh my God this is heaven for us’ so obviously they respect the decision of the government of the day,’’ she said.
Mr Odeesho also has his blue collar job in common with fellow Fairfield residents, meaning many do no have the option of working from home.
Prospect state Labor MP Hugh McDermott said of the 198,817 people who live in Fairfield City, there were 11,000 technical and trade workers, 10,500 labourers, 9000 machinery operators and drivers, 7500 community and service workers, 10,000 professionals, 10,000 administration and clerical staff, 7000 sales workers and 5500 who work in management.
There are double the number of labourers and machine operators in Fairfield compared with the rest of NSW’s council areas.
By contrast, only half the number of machine operators are in wider NSW.
Mr McDermott said 52 per cent of workers in the Fairfield area were unable to work from home, prompting him to attack the government’s rule that Fairfield City residents working outside the area should be tested every three days.
However the government did a backflip on this after the long queues and waiting times choked testing clinics across Fairfield.
Covid patient Khaled Elmasri
Southwest Sydney COVID patient Khaled Elmasri has taken to social media to post a moving video encouraging others to take coronavirus seriously.
Mr Elmasri recorded an emotional video from hospital saying Covid almost killed him.
The father-of-four was hospitalised a week ago after he was struggling to breathe, and almost ended up in intensive care.
“I have learnt my lesson the hard way,” he said in Arabic.
“Of course, I know and know Covid-19 is a real disease, but I don’t think that before now, I took it seriously enough,” he said.
“I was careful, but I don’t think I was careful enough. I should have committed 100 per cent.”
“It is only now after a few days that I can talk and breathe a bit more normally.
“Take the vaccine program seriously. I didn’t take it seriously enough to put my name down for a vaccine beforehand. With hindsight I feel like I should have done that.
“I have learnt my lesson the hard way. I am now going to get the vaccine.’’
There have now been two deaths linked to the Sydney outbreak, including a man in his 70s and a woman in her 90s.
Emma Jenkins, mum of two and Kangatraining operator
Abbotsbury mum Emma Jenkins, who runs Kangatraining mums and bubs post-natal exercise at a Wetherill Park studio, says parents need to keep active in lockdown for their mental health.
Mrs Jenkins is also a registered psychologist and understands what the absence of a parent group means.
“I think it’s so hard anyway for a new mum, the feeling of loneliness and isolation and having a pandemic on top of that, the effects on your mental health can be tenfold,’’ she said.
“We’re trying to facilitate our move to Zoom. Mums are struggling, so we like to keep active so people can keep active and keep connected.’’
About a dozen mothers at Kangatraining were beginning a weekly ritual to meet for coffee after classes, which were held three times a week.
Mrs Jenkins, who grew up in Bossley Park and Abbotsbury, and her husband Mitchell have two sons Jasper, 4, and River, who turns two next month.
There was no doubt the strain the virus and lockdown is having on the community.
“I know that the demand has increased for mental health services but a lot of it’s telehealth (online consultations),’’ she said.
That insight extends to knowing her community is more vulnerable because so many are essential workers forced to leave home to make a living.
“I think people in Fairfield have to go out to work where as people in the Northern Beaches have white collar jobs and Fairfield are blue collar workers,’’ she said.
Hong and Tam, parents and teachers
The juggle is real for Fairfield resident Hong and her husband Tam.
The couple are primary school teachers, have three children under the age of seven and must also co-ordinate online learning from their home in the state’s worst Covid hotspot.
Their children Callum, 7, Eloise, 5, and Theo, 1 ½, are being forced to adjust to digital learning.
“We only started it (home schooling) but I’m already feeling it, the logging on and trying to juggle,’’ Hong said.
“Callum was looking into his Google classroom today and he was getting frustrated. He was trying to write his answers all neatly and he was getting frustrated and then on the other side of me I had Eloise who is in Kindergarten, so it’s her first year of home schooling so she doesn’t know how to read from the screen.’’
In the meantime, Theo is “pulling stuff down” around the house while everyone tries their best.
Hong, 38, is a part time teacher who works twice a week.
“ … What will happen is there will be us at home, the kids will still do what they have to do but on top of that I’ll be on the computer talking to the 25 kids that I have to help out with all their work,’’ she said.
“And then there’s also marking their work and giving them feedback and making phone calls to the parents and making sure kids are OK, and they’re connected and see if they need anymore support as well.’’
Like growing numbers in her community, Hong’s family and friends are feeling vulnerable, including a neighbour who was considered a close contact and saw Hong while infectious (fortunately she tested negative).
“She said I just had to tell you that I didn’t know at the time (she saw me) and she was profusely apologising but I wasn’t upset. Like how would she actually know? But it’s definitely scary.”
A lifelong local, she is following the endless media coverage on the pandemic’s sprawling grip on southwest Sydney, from lack of enough testing clinics, to the heavy police presence.
“I do like the way that (Fairfield Mayor) Frank Carbone is defending us and saying that it’s an issue that everyone has to worry about, and targeting our area is not a good way to go forward for our community,’’ she said.
“I understand we have to crack down on all those things but I prefer that it wasn’t in such a negative way.’’
Anastasia Tsioutsias, cafe owner
Anastasia Tsioutsias leans on a chair stacked upside down on one of the tables in her empty cafe and watches the Premier give her 11am Covid update.
At this time on a Wednesday morning, Ritz Cafe in Fairfield would normally be bustling and full of people, particularly mothers and babies.
But on Wednesday, most of the shops in Fairfield have closed and the streets are empty.
“I’ve never experienced anything like this … even last year,” Mrs Tsioutsias, who has owned the cafe with her husband Louis for 35 years, keeps saying.
A regular customer, who works at the nearby pathology clinic, comes into the cafe to order a takeaway coffee.
Mrs Tsioutsias holds up the two litre bottle of milk, which is still full, to show her: “This is all I’ve used today”.
The 52-year resident of Fairfield has vowed to stay open during lockdown to serve the office workers and various essential staff who work in Fairfield.
“The reason we’re here is because we have good people coming here for many, many years … and I don’t want to let them down,” she said.
“Just me and my husband, no staff. Whoever comes, comes. Like this woman who just came in. She wants a coffee. What is she going to do?”
And what are we going to do at home? We’re going to go insane,” she said.
Despite it all, Mrs Tsioutsias is less worried about the business and more worried about getting sick.
“To be honest with you, the only thing I’m worried about is getting sick, nothing else, I don’t care,” she said
“Whatever happens with the cafe, we will survive, you know what I mean.”
But she said it’s not worth stressing over.
“Like last night, I couldn’t sleep because I was waiting for a Covid result.
“But by stressing, what good will it do?” she said.
I’m not worried about getting Covid from working at the cafe. You can get sick going grocery shopping. You don’t know who’s next to you.”
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