More cases expected from outbreak in northern suburbs - The Age

The health department expects more coronavirus cases to be detected in a growing outbreak in Melbourne’s northern suburbs that has resulted in more than 500 people being told to self-isolate.

The cluster includes 16 active cases across six households, one of whom was a primary school student who attended school for two days while infected with COVID-19 this week.

The Department of Health and Human services said in an update on Thursday that it was expecting more cases to emerge from 10 testing sites and contact tracing across several northern suburbs.

The new cases came as it was revealed that the boy attended East Preston Islamic College on Monday and Tuesday despite members of his family remaining in quarantine at home with active COVID-19 infections, and that the virus had spread as members of the extended family moved between households.

Ekrem Ozyurek, principal of East Preston Islamic School, said the grade five boy's parents had been “very up-front and honest” with the school about the fact that others in the family had previously had the virus.

The department also contacted the school for the first time on Tuesday afternoon to inquire if the boy was at school, saying he should be at home, Mr Ozyurek said.

“When they rang me and said, look he’s not supposed to be at school … I rang and spoke to the father who said the department rang him as well to say they are coming at 4 o’clock to test him,” he said.

Professor Kirsten McCaffery, director of the Sydney Health Literacy Lab and health communication expert, said communication with different language groups was inevitably difficult, but it was essential that a single health department official was assigned to each family outbreak.

Mr Warsame said he had been asking the health department to engage community members to work with officials on translation and constant messaging since July.

While the the health department said it was expecting more cases to emerge from 10 testing sites set up in the northern suburbs, the Premier was "still hopeful" Melbourne would take its next step out of coronavirus restrictions after federal Health Minister Greg Hunt on Thursday again urged Mr Andrews to back Victoria's contact tracing and reopen further.

Dallas Brookes Community Primary School was also closed after a link was found with a case at East Preston Islamic College.Credit:Simon Schluter.

He said he received a text message from the Health Department on Wednesday informing him of nearby exposure sites