New timeline revealed in Cedar Meats abattoir coronavirus outbreak
A coronavirus outbreak at a Melbourne abattoir — that has seen nearly 50 people test positive — began earlier than previously reported by the company and Victorian Government.
A CORONAVIRUS outbreak at a Melbourne abattoir began earlier than previously reported by the company and Victorian Government.
The first case linked to the Cedar Meats worksite in Brooklyn was diagnosed on Friday, April 24, followed by another just over 24 hours later who had attended Sunshine Hospital prior to diagnosis or displaying symptoms.
Cedar Meats mandated all 350 staff to be tested on Thursday, April 30, and on Friday the business closed.
A total of 49 people associated with Cedar Meats have now tested positive for the virus. At least 45 of these are workers.
A staff member at a Footscray aged care facility has been confirmed as one of the four close-contact cases.
It can also be revealed the first person linked to the cluster, but not directly to the worksite, was diagnosed on April 2. But the Department of Health said the person had not been at Cedar Meats for four weeks, so the abattoir was not considered an exposure site.
The department said it began contact tracing, “in conjunction with the business” as soon the second case on April 24 was diagnosed.
Cedar Meats general manager Tony Kairouz said in a statement on Monday that Cedar Meats first became aware an employee had contracted coronavirus on Monday, April 27.
The revelations of the outbreak timeline at Cedar Meats comes after the department and Government refused to reveal the identity of the abattoir and when the first person tested positive for the virus.
The Weekly Times asked the department on Saturday, the same day as the outbreak was publicly announced by Health Minister Jenny Mikakos, when the first worker tested positive for the virus but was not provided the information.
Instead the department said: “The department is responding to cases and outbreaks as they are notified and identified. All necessary public health actions are taken in response, including contact tracing, isolation, quarantine and cleaning.”
The only information provided at the time was that eight people had tested positive to the virus before Friday.
The source of infection that began the outbreak is still under investigation.
Victorian Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said he and the premier had been open and transparent about the situation when question by the media this morning.
Prof Sutton also said Cedar Meats was not informed about the April 2 case.
“For the first case, having not been at work, having said that he wasn’t anywhere near the vicinity, the workplace wouldn’t have been informed about it because they didn’t have exposure of an infected individual,” he told 3AW.
Prof Sutton said that the nature of the work made the facility an “instrincally high risk” environment.
“There are factors that are hard to combat. Long shifts and working closely in hot and laborious conditions. Sometimes they will be closer than 1.5 metres and they can only mitigate that risk to a certain point as they are an essential service,” he said.
Meanwhile, Ms Mikakos is mounting a strident defence of the Government’s response to the Cedar Meats outbreak, quoting Brendan Murphy as saying it’s been “expertly controlled”.
“I’m absolutely confident that they have done everything possible. They have taken the appropriate steps with the business once the cluster had been identified,” she said.
Federal Agriculture Minister David Littleproud said he had concerns on when the federal Agriculture Department was notified about the situation at Cedar Meats.
“I have some concerns which I’m investigating because there were commonwealth departmental people going through those abattoirs doing inspections and I’m just getting to the bottom of when we were notified because obviously they make an inspection in one abattoir and move to another,” he said.
“I want to understand when we were notified and how we were notified, potentially those commonwealth departmental personnel who were in that abattoir and then moved to another one potentially could have spread the virus.”
‘SECRECY’ ON OUTBREAK RUFFLES AG INDUSTRY
THE coronavirus outbreak at Cedar Meats has ruffled the agriculture industry, with concerns about the initial “secrecy” surrounding the business’ identity.
Victorian Health Minister Jenny Mikakos announced the outbreak on Saturday after the business shutdown on Friday for thorough cleaning, but refused to name the abattoir.
Victorian Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said it was “the role for (the) specific meatworks to say ‘it’s us’” and was not the role of the health department to reveal the abattoir’s identity as there were no concerns “about the general community being exposed”.
Cedar Meats general manager Tony Kairouz, who spoke publicly for the first time on Monday, said “we are deeply saddened that there is speculation that we have sought to hide from something that is not of our making — it is an outbreak of a worldwide pandemic at our plant”.
“For the past few days our focus has been 100 per cent inward — on closing down the processing side of our business, taking care of staff and animal welfare,” he said in a statement.
Mr Kairouz said Cedar Meats first became aware an employee had contracted coronavirus on Monday, April 27.
On Wednesday, Cedar Meats was informed a total of four staff, who all worked in one area of the plant, had tested positive for coronavirus.
On Thursday, Cedar Meats mandated all staff to be tested for the virus and on Friday the business closed.
Victorian Farmers Federation president David Jochinke said the abattoir should have been identified at the earliest possible time as “the absence of information creates a lot of angst” and everyone in the industry “needs to be on the same page”.
Livestock and Rural Transport Association of Victoria president John Beer said the situation was handled “very poorly”.
“They keep saying we’re all in it together and they need to preach what they’re trying to preach to us all the time,” Mr Beer said.
Since the confirmation of the abattoir’s identity, Mr Beer said he was aware of at least two other abattoirs that had brought in restrictions that transporters who had been to Cedar Meats in the past 14 days were no longer welcome at its abattoirs and expected more to follow suit.
While he didn’t blame the abattoirs for making the decision, as the shutdown of more would be “chaotic”, Mr Beer said it was unfair transporters who had been welcomed to Cedar Meats since the first worker tested positive more than a week ago could lose work.
Professor Sutton earlier defended the timing of the closure of the abattoir, explaining it first moved to minimal staffing and then “moved to a shutdown at the earliest possible time”.
Mr Kairouz told The Weekly Times “all of our actions were based on the health and welfare of our staff, and following DHHS advice” and that Cedar Meats aims to be operational again by Monday, May 18.
Agriculture Victoria told The Weekly Times “it is not anticipated that this matter will have any significant impact on the supply of meat to consumers”.
DHHS maintain there are no concerns about food safety and the meat processed at the facility is safe to eat.
— with BETHANY GRIFFITHS
MORE
NO ACTION ON DEEMING FOOD PROCESSING ESSENTIAL
‘No one knew it was coming’: Tongala cow abattoir shuts
The livestock industry and local community have reacted to Greenham’s closure of its Tongala cow processing plant.
Victorians want to feel guilt-free about eating meat
Research – to guide a Victorian Government-funded pro-agriculture campaign – has revealed how consumers feel about the state’s farmers and what issues need to be addressed.