Fairfield City Councillor Dai Le has joined the Covid-19 lockdown debate, asking that the blame on residents of the Fairfield-Liverpool-Bankstown LGAs, affected by a spike in the virus, now come to a halt. The current situation, said recently Fairfield Mayor Frank Carbone, should not be perceived exclusively as “a Western Sydney problem”.
“Our community is an amazing culturally diverse one. We have stepped up before when Covid first hit us in 2020. It is disappointing that somehow, we have once again, become the focus,” said Cr Le.
NSW authorities have warned to expect a spike in COVID-19 cases in the south west of Sydney, where the lockdown is putting residents under enormous stress. Available data from NSW Health shows that in the past two days, 11 cases were recorded in Fairfield, 6 in Canterbury-Bankstown and 4 in Liverpool.
Club Marconi in Bossley Park has been classified as a close contact venue, with more cases expected to be traced to the club facility, following a person testing positive on 26 June 2021.
“The people and communities should not be blamed for the continuation of the spread of covid. Last year, around the same time in July, a transport worker travelled to Sydney from a Melbourne hot spot and stopped at the Crossroads Hotel in Casula, which then started the media coverage identifying and labelling South West Sydney a hotpot. This time, again in July, people travelling from the Eastern suburbs to South West have caused community transmission leading to yesterday’s lockdown announcement,” said Cr Le.
Community leaders and religious groups have been amplifying the government’s health messages to the multicultural communities in the south-west and businesses in a tough week of limited trading and many small , family-run businesses struggling to survive.
Multicultural NSW and NSW Health have invited community leaders to COVID-19 information session for the community to convey the most recent public health advice to help keep everyone safe. The meeting, held via Zoom, was facilitated by Joseph La Posta, CEO of Multicultural NSW and Dr Jan Fizzell, Senior Medical Adviser at NSW Health, to provide multicultural communities with the latest COVID-19 updates and answer questions.
“It’s no point in laying the blame on any communities. When news of a community transmission takes place, I know that the people in our region, lockdown very quickly. There have been no shortages of news and reports on the impact of covid. In our community, in particular, fear has been drummed into people’s ears since last year,” said Cr Le.
“And just because the majority of our community don’t speak English, doesn’t mean that they haven’t received the message. They have. Remember, Covid has been around now for 18 months,” said Cr Le.
In addition, NSW Police Deputy Commissioner Gary Worboys informed the public in a recent press conference that 75 infringement notices have been issued to people not complying with the current health orders, including barbers continue to trade under the stay-at-home orders.
The Premier has urged people in the south-west not to mingle with their family members from different households, an announcement which has been described as the hardest aspect of the lockdown.
“We need to ask our political leaders, at Federal and State, to really look at the way we quarantine people. As in these cases, it started from the hotel quarantining. Is our hotel the best infrastructure to be used for quarantine?
Should we stop blaming each other and be kind to one another?,” concluded Cr Le.
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