WELLINGTON Shire mayor Alan Hall is urging the local community to take heed of the latest advice from the Premier and Victoria’s Chief Health Officer, in an attempt to keep Wellington free of COVID-19.
The Wellington municipality has had zero confirmed cases of COVID-19 for some time now, a figure the mayor is keen to see continue.
With the hotspot areas of Melbourne and Mitchell shires now under lockdown but Gippsland still enjoying relatively relaxed restrictions, Cr Hall urged Wellington residents not to become complacent.
“We are incredibly lucky here in Wellington that we have had very low numbers of COVID-19 diagnoses during this pandemic, and none in recent times,” he said.
“We are still relatively free to go about our lives at the moment here in Wellington – a freedom we can’t begin to take for granted.”
The latest advice from the Chief Health Officer is for people to wear face masks if they cannot maintain a physical distance of 1.5 metres from people in public spaces.
“I encourage everyone to carry with them a face mask and to wear it if you find yourself in a situation where you cannot maintain that physical distance,” Cr Hall said.
“This is a very serious situation, and we need to treat it as such.
“Wearing a face mask, washing your hands, using sanitiser and keeping your distance are very small sacrifices to make to ensure our community is kept COVID-free.
“We owe it to ourselves, our loved ones and members of our community to be very diligent and continue to protect our health and safety.”
Cr Hall said Wellington Shire Council was leading by example, by continuing wherever possible to have staff work from home, providing opportunities in its public spaces for physical distancing, installing sanitising stations in its public buildings and providing face masks to all customer-facing staff.
“All Wellington residents need to do all they can to keep Wellington free of COVID-19 and take care of each other,” Cr Hall said.
