Yarrawonga: Melburnians bring Covid to small town on Victorian-NSW border

Melburnians have caused Covid chaos in Yarrawonga on the Victorian-NSW border as the small country town battles its first outbreak.

Melburnians have been blamed for causing chaos in a small country town on the Victorian-NSW border as residents hold their breath hoping the worst of its Covid outbreak is over.

Yarrawonga now has 73 active Covid cases, meaning almost 1 per cent of its 7900-population now has the virus.

That’s equivalent to 50,000 cases in Melbourne if the city’s infection rate matched the border community.

Alarmingly, almost 50 of Yarrawonga’s Covid cases are linked to a primary school.

Margaret Sandford, a local grandmother from Yarrawonga, said she had never seen so many out-of-towners in the one region before the outbreak.

“I’ve never seen so many people there in all my life (while out for dinner at a local restaurant),” she said.

“Normally you see people you know but I didn’t see one person I knew. We get a lot of tourists. And we need it for the town but it’s bringing Covid.”

Breraton’s Bakery worker Elaine Comden said the community was prepared for an outbreak given situations in nearby towns including Shepparton and Wodonga who have both battled their own clusters.

But she said locals did not believe the virus would impact schools as badly as it had.

“We all knew it was going to happen at some stage because it’s been in Shepparton and Wodonga so it was going to come. We’ve been lucky until now,” Ms Comden said.

“But we weren’t expecting it to be in the schools so much. I’ve had a lot of customers here saying a lot of the children haven’t been showing symptoms, they’ve just got it and they were surprised they’ve got it.

“Because it’s warmed up we’ve had more people from Melbourne up here. A lot of the (school) parents are staying away (from town) and being apprehensive because they don’t want to give it to anyone.”

Locals use QR codes to check in at the Yarrawonga Bakery. Picture: Hannah Davies.

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

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

Yarrawonga P-12 College also confirmed a case on Monday forcing grade three students into isolation.

But in good news Yarrawonga Woolies worker Jenny says panic buying hasn’t set in.

“We all knew it was coming so it wasn’t a big surprise, but we were ready,” Jenny said.

“A lot of people have come here from Melbourne in recent times. I’ve been working here for 25 years and I’m seeing faces I’ve never seen before.”

Andrew Curran, Burke’s Hotel Motel owner, said despite the chaos caused, Melburnians would always be welcome.

“The future looks really rosy for the town, but it’s been trying,” he said.