Sunraysia Indigenous community gets urgent testing call

SUNRAYSIA’S Indigenous community has been urged to get tested for COVID-19 following revelations that “many” local residents attended the same funeral in Wilcannia, where a community transfer of the virus took place.

The Far West Local Health District (FWLHD) confirmed on Thursday that three more positive COVID-19 cases had been detected at Wilcannia as NSW health authorities fear the funeral, where more than 100 people gathered, could become a “major seeding event”.

A Broken Hill resident who also attended the funeral tested positive on Monday, prompting FWLHD to establish several pop-up testing clinics around the region, including at Gol Gol, Dareton and Wentworth.

A further clinic was being set up at Dareton’s Namatjira mission in response to the recent Broken Hill and Wilcannia cases.

New stay-at-home restrictions were introduced for all of regional NSW effective from 5pm last Saturday, with funerals and memorial services restricted to 10 people from Monday, excluding the persons conducting the service.

Mallee District Aboriginal Services (MDAS) issued an urgent notice to the community on Thursday about the growing NSW outbreak.

“It has been confirmed that mob attending sorry business in Wilcannia have tested positive to COVID-19,” the statement read.

“If you or anyone you know have been to Wilcannia or surrounding areas in New South Wales, please contact MDAS immediately to get tested.

“MDAS is here to support you and it’s important that anyone that has been in contact with mob in New South Wales gets tested, so we can make sure we don’t spread COVID-19 in our community.”

The three new cases at Wilcannia bring the total of confirmed FWLHD cases to seven.

The new cases were in isolation and follow-up investigations and contact tracing was continuing.

“We are calling on anyone who has been in Wilcannia in recent days to get tested, regardless of whether or not they have symptoms,” a FWLHD spokesperson said.

“All Far West residents are also urged to limit their movements in the community at this time.

FWLHD said it had increased testing capacity in Wilcannia and Broken Hill as a number of new close and casual contact venues were confirmed in both towns overnight Wednesday.

Anyone who visited the Wilcannia Roadhouse Grahams Motel last Saturday, between 9am and 9.10am, must get tested and isolate until a negative test result is received.

On Thursday the NSW Government extended stay-at-home orders for regional NSW until at least 12.01am on Saturday, August 28, due to ongoing concerns about community transmission.

Deputy Premier John Barilaro said the three new cases registered in Wilcannia had authorities worried about how far the virus had spread within remote Indigenous communities and possibly across regional NSW.

Mr Barilaro said the funeral was attended by “a large number of people, so we think it’s going to be a pretty significant seeding event”.

“It is now possible that the movement and mobility of these people could infect a large part of the region.

“If it has become a major sowing event, it would mean that other parts of regional and rural NSW, especially in the Far West and central west, and other parts, can now be worrying.”