Coronavirus: Victorian Minister Lisa Neville defends Cedar Meats privacy call

A Victorian minister has stood by the decision not to give Cedar Meats the name of a worker who tested positive to COVID-19.

Victorian Emergency Services Minister Lisa Neville. Picture: AAP

Victorian Emergency Services Minister Lisa Neville has stood by the state health department’s decis­ion not to give Melbourne abattoir Cedar Meats the name of a worker who tested positive to COVID-19 on April 2, despite conceding there are occasions when public health trumps privacy.

The Australian revealed on ­Friday that managers of Cedar Meats — now linked to 71 cases — had been unable to check the worker's claim he had not been at work for four weeks prior to testing positive, because the ­Depart­ment of Health and Human Services had refused to give them his name, citing privacy reasons.

The department’s decision not to treat Cedar Meats as a potential exposure site following the April 2 case meant the second case there was not confirmed until April 24.

Ms Neville said she did not believ­e the decision was a “black and white, privacy versus public health” matter.

“I think it’s about making the right decisions based on the inform­ation the health people had, about when information is provide­d more broadly beyond the individual involved,” she said. “In some cases it is in the public interest that you override privacy, and in other cases it’s not in the public interest, and we’ve got to trust our health experts to make those judgments, and I think everyone across Victoria would say we have been made proud by our health officials … and they have got those balances right and made those judgments in the interests of the public.”

Asked if the Cedar Meats case was not an instance where public health interests overrode privacy, Premier Daniel Andrews said it was a matter for health authorities.

“In terms of … those often very challenging decisions about privacy­ versus public health, they’re not judgments that are made by me,” Mr Andrews said. “They’re made by the public health team, as I think they should be, and … vary from case to case.”

An additional case previously considered a community transmission was linked on Friday to the Cedar Meats cluster. Total cases linked to it rose from 62 on Thursday to 71 on Friday.

Ms Neville said no new Cedar Meats-linked cases involved health or aged-care workers; a Sunshine Hospital nurse and an worker at Doutta Galla Aged Care in Footscray were confirmed with COVID-19 this week. She understood all new Cedar Meats cases were workers, other than a student at Marcellin College in Melbourne’s north who is understood to be a close contact of a worker.