More essential workers have been provided with an exemption from close contact home isolation requirements to attend their workplace under changes to the State’s COVID-19 rules.
Announced by Premier, Daniel Andrews, the changes came into effect at midnight on Tuesday (18 January) and apply to workers in emergency services, education, critical utilities, custodial facilities, transport and freight.
“Under the conditions of the exemption, the worker may return to work if it is necessary for continuity of operations and if other options have been exhausted,” Mr Andrews said.
“The exemption will apply to attending work only, not any other settings,” he said.
“In order to be eligible, the worker must first notify the employer of their status as a contact and, critically, both parties must consent to the worker returning to the workplace.”
Mr Andrews said the exemption order was identical to that granted by Victoria’s public health team for key food and beverage workers, and was designed to protect the State’s essential workforce during the continuing Omicron wave.
The Premier said stronger measures were required to reduce the risk of the close contacts attending work, including that the worker return daily negative Rapid Antigen Test (RAT) results for five days; wear a face mask at all times, excluding eating and drinking; not enter shared break areas; and the exemption would cease to apply if the worker developed symptoms or returned a positive RAT result.
He said this exemption also applied to hospital workers, disability workers, residential aged care facility workers and ambulance workers.
“Close contacts, otherwise known as household and household-like contacts, are people who have spent more than four hours with a case inside a house, accommodation or care facility,” Mr Andrews said.
