“The cases that are related to construction continue to be investigated by our public health team, both regionally and in metropolitan Victoria. There is a bit of a crossover with some larger outbreaks in the construction sector, together with these regional cases as well.
“There is a Panorama Box Hill construction site, in Box Hill of course, which has had an outbreak that we have referred to a few times. It is now sitting at 116 cases associated across three related construction sites, and has been one of the most significant outbreaks in this particular outbreak event.
“Today is day 11 of the testing and isolation of those three related sites, so as day 13 tests commence in a couple of days, we would expect the over 300 primary close contacts associated with that site to continue to return more positives. And a construction site in the city has had nine cases linked to its construction site.
“Of course, construction is quite rightly a permitted activity under the current restrictions, it is a skilled and mobile workforce, but what these positive cases show is that being mobile, it is able to be seeded both across metropolitan Melbourne and a number of the regional settings of Victoria.
“Construction, together with a focus from the public health team, the industry and the regulatory agencies, is a strong focus of activity at the moment, to ensure we get ahead of these outbreaks and make sure that the most important thing that the sector can do is both continue and improve their COVID-safe plans, but equally, make sure that they do their bit for the high levels of vaccination.
“Construction companies do have the responsibility to stick to their COVID-safe plans and to make sure that all the things that go with that apply on construction sites
“That everybody is checking in.
“That you have the correct density number of workers on site.
“That all workers test at the first sign of any symptoms
“Anybody that is eligible needs to get a vaccine as soon as they possibly can.
“So if I had one message today, it was that all workers, big and small, in the construction industry, need to make sure that they follow the rules and that the time for continuing to hand out warnings in the sector is over, and that a combination of the authorised officers, WorkSafe inspectors and indeed the leadership of the sector itself is about making sure that the spike that we have seen in construction-related cases comes to an end.”
