THE number of COVID-19 close contacts continues to grow, and Victoria’s public health team will provide more essential workers with an exemption from close contact home isolation requirements, to permit them to go to work.
Workers in emergency services, education, critical utilities, custodial facilities, and transport and freight will join workers in the food production sector in being eligible for an exemption.
Conditions state the worker may return to work if it is necessary for continuity of operations and if other options have been exhausted. The exemption will apply to attending work only, not any other settings.
To be eligible, workers must first notify their employer of their status as a contact, and critically, both parties must consent to the worker returning to the workplace. They are already required to be fully vaccinated.
To reduce the risk of a contact attending work while infectious:
• The worker must undertake a daily Rapid Antigen Test (RAT) for five days and return a negative result prior to attending work each day – They must wear a face mask at all times, with exceptions when they are eating or drinking, or safety reasons, and a P2 or N95 respirator is preferred.
• They cannot enter shared break areas and the employer must try and facilitate solo break time. The employer must also take reasonable step to deploy the worker to areas where transmission risk is lower
If at any time the worker develops symptoms or tests positive on a RAT, the exemption no longer applies – they are a case, must isolate for 7 days, and must notify others including their employer.
The exemption order is identical to that granted to key food and beverage workers and has been designed to protect Victoria’s essential workforce during the Omicron wave. This exemption currently applies to hospital workers, disability workers, residential aged care facility workers, and ambulance workers, except wearing a N95 mask at work is a requirement, not a preference.
More information on the conditions of the exemption and applicable workers is available at www.coronavirus.vic.gov.au/isolation-exemptions
