As the impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) on the Australian community continues to evolve, Moree Plains Shire Council is taking further steps to protect the safety of our staff, customers and our community.
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In terms of the delivery of council services to the Moree Plains, please be assured that council has established its own crisis management team from across the organisation to respond quickly to the changing situation and is taking advice and direction from the NSW and federal governments.
We have been preparing a range of measures to assist us in keeping our community and staff safe while we focus on maintaining the delivery of council services.
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At this time, we strongly urge our residents, businesses and visitors to keep abreast of information and take advice from the NSW and federal health authorities.
For the most up-to-date information about COVID-19, go to:
- NSW Heath - https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/Pages/default.aspx
- Federal Government, Department of Health - https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/Pages/default.aspx
- Smartraveller - https://www.smartraveller.gov.au/
As a community, we love our neck of the woods but plenty of us enjoy trips away to other places within the state, within Australia and overseas.
In the days ahead, some of our community members will be returning from overseas and self-isolating, as mandated by the federal government. As a community, we need to care for them from a distance; we should keep talking to our isolators by phone, we need to shop for them and even perhaps cook for them and leave the food on the front step. Isolators are helping us all.
Into the future, when incidents of COVID-19 emerge in our community, affected community members will need to isolate themselves. Once recovered, those isolators may well be the people who are looking after us when, and if, our turn comes. We are inextricably linked as a community like never before.
As a community, we have to be vigilant, sensible and aware. Let's absolutely live by the advice we have received from the federal and state governments. The latest advice is that COVID-19 is most likely to spread from person-to-person through:
- Direct close contact with a person while they are infectious or in the 24 hours before their symptoms appeared.
- Close contact with a person with a confirmed infection who coughs or sneezes.
- Touching objects or surfaces (such as door handles or tables) contaminated from a cough or sneeze from a person with a confirmed infection, and then touching your mouth or face.
Practising good hand and sneeze/cough hygiene and keeping your distance from others when you are sick is the best defence against most viruses, including COVID-19.
You should:
- Wash your hands frequently with soap and water, before and after eating, and after going to the toilet. Your handwashing practise should take at least 20 seconds.
- Cover your cough and sneeze, dispose of tissues, and wash your hands.
- If unwell, avoid contact with others (stay more than 1.5m from others) and no handshakes.
- Exercise personal responsibility for social distancing measures - keep a distance of 1.5m between you and other people.
I implore our community to follow this advice. We need to do all things we can to ensure our health system is best placed to support our community through this.
I implore our community to consider staying put unless your travel is really important. And I mean, really important. Giving up a few of our usual liberties is a small price to pay to be responsible members of our community.
Council and MAAC are monitoring developments daily and reacting to advice given by other levels of government. Any bulletins we have received or will receive in the future will be immediately placed on our website and Facebook page.
Fiscally we are going to hurt, but we have survived the Global Financial Crisis, floods and three years of drought. I welcome the stimulus packages offered up thus far by other levels of government and there will no doubt be more to come to assist Australians in these unprecedented times.
So team Moree Plains, we will get through this upheaval; we need to be caring for our elderly neighbours, families and friends so they don't have to venture out too much and be put at risk. Our basic hygiene is good; let's be sensible, not paranoid and follow the advice of the experts. Remember also, that many more people have recovered from COVID-19 than have passed away, small relief for many but nonetheless a fact. We need to give our health system the opportunity to nurse our community through this.
On a purely selfish note, I have always loved living in a rural area, but it seems so much more loveable now; we have good clean healthy water and sanitation and as much fresh air as we can possibly desire. For these things, I am grateful.
