Thread by @MargaretSimons

COVID positive residents of the Flemington and North Melbourne public housing towers are not being given alternative accommodation, putting other tenants and the wider community at risk, according to community leaders.

Only 19 COVID positive cases and their close contacts from the towers subjected to hard lockdown have been moved to alternative accommodaton, according to figures given by @VicGovDHHS yesterday. (see my thread yesterday) This is despite a total of 243 COVID positive cases.

Mr Elhadi Abass, a tower resident and the manager of the Multicultural Sudanese Centre on the Flemington estate, said this morning that @VicGovDHHS was not doing enough to encourage COVID positive residents to move.

This meant that in some cases a COVID positive person was living in the same flat and sharing a bathroom with COVID negative family members, he said. The failure to move COVID positive residents risked undermining the rationale for the lockdown.

The wider community was also at risk because all but one of the nine towers subjected to the hard lockdown has now been moved to Stage 3 restrictions, meaning COVID negative people had returned to work, Mr Abass said.

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the community of volunteers supporting residents at #33Alfred Street - the tower which is still in hard lockdown - said some COVID positive residents wanted to move, but had not been given the option of doing so.

This was despite the Premier, Daniel Andrews, saying that COVID positive residents of the towers would be "strongly encouraged" to move to government-provided alternative accommodation.

The spokesperson said that if the hard lockdown of the Alfred Street tower ended as scheduled this coming Saturday, the failure to move COVID positive cases meant that neighbours who had been in close contact would be out in the community and back at work.

"What's the point been of this awful lockdown if that happens?" she said. The Alfred Street tower had its lockdown extended because of a high number of COVID positive cases, with the authorities saying up to 25 per cent of the residents might test positive over time.

Mr Abass said he had raised the issue of COVID positive residents not being moved at a meeting with police and DHHS representatives, but that the response had been unsatisfactory.

He said he had tried to persuade DHHS and police to keep a watch on the floors containing COVID positive cases, but allow other residents to return to a more normal life - including using the communal laundries which are currently closed.

At the moment, the government is providing a limited laundry service to residents, but they are also having to wash clothes in their bathrooms.

Mr Abass said that many COVID positive residents were still confused about the pandemic, the reasons for the lockdown and the restrictions they were meant to be observing.

Information had been posted in the lifts to the towers, but not all of those affected were literate, he said. "I told the Department you have to work hard to explain and persuade the people," he said. "But I was told that they cannot be forced.

"I'm not talking about forcing them. I am talking about working harder to make sure they understand, and letting them know about what the alternatives are."

The Victorian Government placed nine public housing towers in Flemington and North Melbourne in "hard lockdown" two Saturdays ago without warning, meaning tenants were not permitted to leave their flats for any reason.

After chaotic implementation, and mass testing, eight towers were released to Stage 3 restrictions last Thursday, but the tower at 33 Alfred Street remains on hard lockdown.

There have been continued tensions between the heavy police presence at 33 Alfred Street and volunteers supporting the residents, although consultation with the community has gradually improved.

The Department of Health and Human Services, which is responsible both for the lockdown and for public housing, said yesterday that a community working group now met daily and that community members were also on the management team overseeing the lockdown.

The @VicGovDHHS has been approached for comment on the community leaders' concerns, but has not yet responded. I will report its response as soon as it is available.