Coronavirus: ‘Why did they come into our shop?’ laments Melbourne restaurateur
It was a quiet night at the Smile Buffalo Thai restaurant, tucked away in the southeast bayside suburb of Black Rock, on the Monday before Christmas.
It was a quiet night at the Smile Buffalo Thai restaurant, tucked away in the southeast bayside suburb of Black Rock, on the Monday before Christmas.
Restaurateur Navara Kingtada said there would have been less than 20 people enjoying her authentic dishes such as chicken spring rolls, Thai-style buffalo ribs and pad pong ka ree crab.
“It was just normal dining like a normal day,” the 37-year-old told The Australian, adding there were no big groups.
Ten days later, she would discover on the morning news that the night was anything but normal, after a traveller from NSW ate dinner at her venue — forcing her to cancel two fully booked dinner sittings on New Year’s Eve.
“I can’t believe it,” she said.
“(There must be) a million shops here … why did they have to come into our shop?”
What happened in this little Thai restaurant on December 21 rippled across the nation on Thursday, sparking border closures and sending panic through a city and state still bruised from the deadly coronavirus second wave and four-month lockdown.
The Black Rock outbreak, which ended two months of zero locally acquired cases, covers a diverse geographic and cultural cross-section of Melbourne, entangling some of city’s most prestigious and wealthy sporting clubs.
They include the Royal Brighton Yacht Club in Melbourne’s bayside southeast and an exclusive golf club on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula — the National Golf Club at Cape Schanck.
Before both clubs were confirmed by the Department of Health and Human Services as “exposure sites”, Fountain Gate shopping centre — the second home of Australia’s iconic mother-daughter duo of Kath & Kim — had become embroiled in the outbreak.
An infectious COVID-19 case visited Kmart, Big W, Target, Millers, King of Gifts and Lo Costa there on Boxing Day.
Ms Kingtada said she was not alerted to the case by the Department of Health and Human Services before the media and discovered news her restaurant was at the centre of Victoria’s latest outbreak only when she saw the morning news. She was then contacted by the DHHS.
“We just know from the health department they came here; we can’t know who or which table,” she said. “(We know) they got it from NSW and have been to the shop after they came back.
“It kills me. It’s New Year’s Eve … everybody was disappointed because they were waiting for a party.”
It could be one of the most unlikely venues for a superspreader event, but the restaurant with a capacity of about 40 had been linked with eight new locally acquired coronavirus cases by Thursday afternoon.
Ms Kingtada said none of her staff reported symptoms, but all had a COVID-19 test on Thursday just in case.
Victoria’s commander of COVID-19 response Jeroen Weimar confirmed three infections, all from Melbourne’s southeastern suburbs, identified on Wednesday had direct or indirect links to the venue.
“The crossover between the Mitcham and the Hallam and Mentone people has been a facility in Black Rock and a direct link to a NSW returned traveller,” Health Minister Martin Foley said. “Now we’ve got links to the NSW outbreak here in Victoria, we’re responding really, really quickly to get on top of that.”
A further five cases were identified on Thursday as close contacts, all linked to the restaurant.
New cases in Victoria and NSW, which recorded 10 new infections on Thursday, led to borders slamming shut.
Victoria’s Acting Premier, Jacinta Allan, announced the state would shut it’s border with NSW from 11:59pm on Friday evening.
“This is not an easy choice — closing borders, putting in place restrictions, is never an easy choice to make,” she said. “It’s certainly not one we wanted to be making and announcing on a day (meant) to be about celebrating.”
The case of COVID-19 before Christmas also engulfed a small Catholic parish on Thursday after someone with the virus attended a 4pm Spanish mass on Boxing Day. It prompted the Doveton parish to cancel New Year services at the Holy Family Church in Melbourne’s southeast. Parishioners were notified in an email.
Pop-up testing clinics were inundated with Victorians queued on the street and in cars: one line stretched 1km in Parkdale.