Coronavirus: Islamic school Al-Taqwa College is Victoria’s second-biggest cluster

Victorian authorities are treating all 2000 students and 300 teachers at the state’s largest Islamic school as close ­contacts.

Al-Taqwa Islamic College in Melbourne’s west. Picture: Kylie Else

Victorian Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton says health authorities are treating all 2000 students and 300 teachers at the state’s largest Islamic school as close ­contacts, after it emerged as the site of Victoria’s second-biggest coronavirus cluster.

The number of cases on Tuesday reached 90 at Al-Taqwa College, in the outer western suburb of Truganina, just over a week after the first case was made public on June 29.

The only larger Victorian cluster so far is the 111 cases that were linked to abattoir Cedar Meats.

Professor Sutton said it was “entirely possible” that a considerable amount of virus transmission had already occurred before authorities became aware of the first case.

 

“There seems to have been transmission in the school that was quite substantial,” Professor Sutton said of the P-12 school.

“They are older kids.

“They tend to have more transmission that’s akin to adults, if they’re not doing physical distancing appropriately, so that’s been a big cluster in terms of schools.

“We’re essentially treating all the teachers and all the students as close contacts, and we’ve asked them all to quarantine for that ­reason.”

Victoria’s health department first mentioned a single case in a teacher at the school on Monday June 29 — the first day of school holidays.

The following day, that increased to three teachers.

By Wednesday, eight teachers at the school had become infected.

At least one close contact became part of the cluster by the Thursday, when the cluster reached 15, with students also among a total of 23 cases by the Friday, 33 by Saturday, 59 by ­Sunday, 77 by Monday and 90 by ­Tuesday.

A separate family outbreak, also in Truganina, has been linked to at least 17 cases — with a total of 105 active cases on Tuesday in the overlapping local government area of Wyndham, which despite having the second-highest ­caseload of any Victorian LGA had no locked-down postcodes.

In a statement on Facebook on Monday, Al-Taqwa principal Omar Hallak said the school had been vigilant since the outbreak of COVID-19 and taken “every precaution”, including temperature checks on all staff, students and visitors, hygiene posters and instructions to follow the CHO’s guidelines and not attend if sick.

“We have tried our utmost best to prevent having any cases in our school and mosque. Unfortunately, this is out of our hands as it is with quite a few other schools around Victoria, around the ­nation and around the world, which is quite saddening,” he said.

Parent Moid Mohammed said the school should be held to ­account as a neighbouring school had no reported cases.

“How can the school not be responsible when it took the decision confidently to reopen ... the way I see it is that all strictness and due diligence in taking necessary care only lasted for a week at the school and the ball dropped after that,” Mr Mohammed said.

“We would like some answers from management.”

Fellow parent Fedah Kaddour said the outbreak “wasn’t anyone’s fault” and thanked staff.

“It‘s unfortunate the government advised you to open the school when it clearly wasn’t safe to do so,” Ms Kaddour wrote.

It is not the first time Mr Hallak and the Sunni school — which was established as the Islamic School of Werribee in 1986 — have hit the headlines.

In 2015, the Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority investigated after a former teacher wrote to the state and federal education ministers alleging that Mr Hallak banned girls from running at sporting events because he believed it could cause them to lose their virginity.

The same year, The Age reported Mr Hallak had told students that Islamic State was a plot by Western countries and he believed the terrorist group was created by Israel and the US.