A CLERICAL error has plunged many Sunraysia residents into unnecessary isolation after Mildura’s Harvey Norman store was mistakenly listed as a tier 1 exposure site.
Late on Friday, Bendigo Health said the advice for Harvey Norman Mildura staff and customers to get tested and monitor for COVID-19 symptoms had been incorrectly published and later removed from the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) website.
The embarrassing bungle affected a large number of Mildura residents who had spent the day in isolation after rushing out to be tested.
From 8am on Friday, a line to the Barratt & Smith Pathology testing station stretched from Shillidays Lane down Tenth Street and around the block to Langtree Avenue.
Testers were quick to attend to the queue and fast-tracked people identified as vulnerable, including the elderly and pregnant women.
However it proved futile for many who believed they had been to a tier 1 exposure site between October 15 and 26 after the Fifteenth Street store was added to the DHHS website just before 5pm on Thursday.
PRD Real Estate Mildura remained listed as an exposure site from October 18 to 22, between 8am and 6pm, and F45 Training Mildura on October 22, from 4.45am to 6.15am.
A COVID-positive case also visited the Mildura Working Man’s Club gaming room on October 22, from 9.30am to noon and 4pm to 5.45pm.
Anyone who has visited a tier 1 exposure site must self-isolate and get a COVID test.
The quarantine period is seven days from the date of exposure for people who are fully vaccinated and 14 days for anyone else.
Mildura recorded four new COVID infections yesterday, bringing the number of active cases to 158.
