The NSW government needs to improve its health department's communication or a "lag" in notifying businesses and the public of exposure sites could allow the virus to spread, a Newcastle restaurant owner believes.
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Darrell Stapleton, who operates Habesha Ethiopian Restaurant at The Junction, has slammed the lack and speed of information provided by authorities after one of his employee's tested positive for COVID-19.
Mr Stapleton said he was made aware by one of his full-time workers on Saturday that they had contracted the virus. He said he immediately closed the restaurant and told every staff member to get tested and self-isolate.
But he did not receive a call from health authorities until Monday morning.
"I persistently, over that 48-hour period, called and called and called trying to find out where do I get guidance from, what am I supposed to do and how do we handle it moving forward," he said. "My first phone call was Monday morning. We found out that our venue was officially listed, like everybody else, in the newspaper."
Hunter New England Health listed the venue late on Sunday night. A post on its Facebook page says anyone who visited Habesha between Saturday, July 31, and Thursday, August 5, is considered a close contact.
However, told of the post, Mr Stapleton said that timeline was "news to me, we haven't been told that at all".
"It's a serious lag," he said. "Obviously that Delta variant moves very quickly. People are wondering why it's still spreading, this is why.
"They're so under-resourced. The state government needs to put far greater resources up here."
The restaurateur's criticism came as six new cases in the Hunter New England were announced Monday, taking the region's cluster to 26. Mr Stapleton said his business, which has been trading for 10 years, likely "won't survive this". He said he still had "no guidance" about when he could reopen.
"There's supposed to be a venue risk-assessment team that contacts you and walks you through what to do and how to do it," he said.
"I've had nothing. I've heard from one doctor ... who said, 'can you get this person tested, can you get that person tested'."
Hunter New England public health physician, Dr David Durrheim, said there were instances when businesses had to be named as exposure sites before authorities made contact with operators.
"Over weekends, sometimes despite every effort that is made, it's impossible to reach a venue owner," he said. "Every attempt is made to do that. We use email, phone calls and ... if that is impossible to do, and if a venue has had confirmed transmission, then we cannot delay announcing it."
Dr Durrheim said some venues announced themselves as exposure sites "before we've been in contact".
"If venues put out the warning because they feel like they've got a public responsibility to do it, that's fine, but people need to be tolerant that times change, sometimes even dates change, when we get a hold of CCTV footage and check-ins and so on," he said.
"There are lags. Clearly there are thousands of venues across NSW which are being reviewed. Some of these venues that were opened previously are now closed, so it's difficult contacting people getting all of the information to make a full-risk assessment."
Dr Durrheim said Hunter New England Health dealt with most local venues, but larger businesses like supermarket or fast food chains were assessed "centrally" by NSW Health in Sydney.
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