The city has thrown its support behind Warrnambool's Deep Blue Hotel and Hot Springs with the spa's Saturday sessions selling out, less than a day after it was listed as a Tier 1 COVID-19 exposure site.
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Owner Rebecca Seabrooke said the hot springs were closed as soon as they received the news on Friday that it was an exposure site and it had undergone a deep clean.
"Barwon Heath said 'you don't need to close' but we decided to do a really extensive and thorough clean all yesterday and last night, and then we re-opened again today," Mrs Seabrooke said on Saturday.
She said all the affected staff had been tested and were isolating and awaiting results.
Mrs Seabrooke said the hot springs facilities were always cleaned during sessions and between each session time, with strict protocols already in place.
She said the exposure was contained and didn't affect any other parts of the business, including the hotel.
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She said the spa's salt room was also extensively cleaned, despite the cases, which attended the spa on Saturday, October 2, having no contact in that area.
"Even though we didn't have to close down, we thought that that was in our best interest as a business," Mrs Seabrooke said.
"We had about 50 bookings (on Friday) that we rescheduled so we could show this is what we're willing to do."
Mrs Seabrooke said customers were great when informed of the cancellation of Friday's two sessions and were happy to reschedule for this weekend or next week.
"They all understood what we were doing which was great," she said. "They were all fantastic which makes it a lot easier on our staff.
"We did everything we could to make sure that the public and all our staff feel safe and wanted do everything right for the community as well.
"Everyone knows it's going to come but when it does it's very stressful."
She said people had reached out to her and husband Gene in the past 24 hours and it was an amazing community to live in.
"We have just said 'we feel so grateful in Warrnambool', with the vaccination rate and that everyone comes together and everyone gets a test.
"Everyone just does the right thing and pulls together. It really does feel like a safe community. It's just fantastic to be in that vibe, especially when things like this do happen."
She said it was reassuring in the uncertain environment we were living in that everyone was doing the right thing.
"Warrnambool's doing a brilliant job and it's only for us to go far and beyond just like the community is, to keep us all safe."
She said while the hot springs had a capacity of 120 people, each session was limited to 50 people during COVID-19.
"We decided to scale it right back," she said. "We want it to be relaxing and for people to feel safe and not on top of each other which everyone is aware of with what's going on.
"That's why we just thought that we would even scale it back even further. Just for the time being and just gauge on how the community is feeling and how we feel with it," she said.
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