Sacred Heart Primary School at centre of Yarrawonga-Mulwala Covid outbreak

Almost 50 Covid cases have been linked to a primary school at Yarrawonga-Mulwala as hundreds of residents are forced into isolation.

A small community on the Victoria-NSW border is battling to get a Covid cluster under control with a primary school at the centre of the outbreak.

Hundreds of Yarrawonga-Mulwala residents have been forced into isolation as a result of the outbreak with Yarrawonga recording six new cases on Wednesday.

The active number of cases now sits at 73 in the Victorian town.

Sacred Heart Primary School closed its doors for two weeks last Thursday on the back of a Covid outbreak which now sits at 46 — the fourth largest cluster in Victoria.

Students will return to on-site learning on Friday, November 26.

The Goulburn Valley News understands several classes across the school were asked to get tested and isolate.

“This decision has been made on the advice of Catholic Education Sandhurst in line with the operational guidelines,” principal Arn Gorman said in a message to parents.

Yarrawonga P-12 College also confirmed a case in its school community on Monday forcing all grade three students into isolation.

Some year seven, 10 and 11 pupils were also impacted.

Yarrawonga Health chief executive Elaine Mallows urged anyone with symptoms to come forward and get tested.

“We have testing available at our Woods Rd site everyday from 8.30am,” she said in an update on Tuesday.

“I would like to thank the community for coming out for testing in the last five days in such huge numbers.

“It’s fantastic to see the community making these efforts to keep our communities safe. I’d also like to thank our teams for their efforts.

“Together we will get through this.”

Businesses in the twin towns have copped abuse in recent days including the Yarrawonga Bakery after a staff member, who had not attended the site for several days, tested positive.

All staff are vaccinated at the business.

“To the person who rang the bakery today (and) would not disclose her name and was quite aggressive and rude to a staff member (who does not deserve that type of behaviour you displayed) — if you have an issue please call back or come into the bakery show your face,” the bakery said in a social media post.

“With these challenging times — it‘s extremely hard when people ring or be keyboard warriors demonstrating negativity when businesses are doing it tough as it is....please refrain from posting negative comments.”

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