South West Healthcare to screen Midfield Meats Warrnambool staff

Hospital chief executive Craig Fraser said South West Healthcare was working with Midfield Meats in supporting its proactive screening of its workforce.

He said only staff would be screened, not family members.

"The screening of staff's family members, including children, can only be carried out if family members have been deemed by the Department of Health and Human Services as a close contact, or have symptoms consistent with DHHS COVID-19 screening criteria," he said.

He would not disclose how many SWH staff would be deployed to carry out the screenings, or where the workers would be screened.

Meanwhile, Member for Polwarth Richard Riordan said he feared a cluster at an abattoir in Colac had grown to at least 20.

So far, 12 positive cases have been linked to Australian Lamb Colac, including nine workers, a school student and close contact.

During the Monday morning press conference Premier Daniel Andrews said the government was aware meat processing facilities were "high risk".

"We understand abattoirs are particularly high risk and they have many rules in place, they are not operating as normal," he said.

"There's no advice that anything needs to be changed there, but I'm sure we'd be open to that if it was needed.

"These are important industries and we don't want to change the rules overnight."

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