Pilbara leaders speak out on WA Health’s COVID case reporting in the region

The heads of two of the Pilbara’s biggest shires have both expressed concerns over WA Health’s decision to not disclose the locations of positive COVID-19 cases in regional WA. Currently WA Health is providing daily updates on new and cumulative cases for the Pilbara, but not providing a breakdown of which towns the active cases are in. Town of Port Hedland Mayor Peter Carter said he was frustrated by the lack of information on the whereabouts of positive cases in the Pilbara. “It’s disgusting and very, very frustrating,” he said. “I don’t know why they’re not giving this information out. “It’s all about keeping communities safe, but we need to know where people who have COVID have been.” As part of the contact tracing process, contact tracers speak to positive cases and determine where they had been in the days they were possibly infectious. High risk exposure locations are listed by WA Health when contact tracers cannot identify all contacts at the location. The State Government’s website states that low risk exposure sites are only listed in circumstances determined by public health. City of Karratha Mayor Peter Long said if it was possible to report the location of a positive case then it should be done. “I have asked that question and one of the things they replied was ‘we haven’t needed to do it because there’s not been any cases here so it’s not happening’,” he said. “The other thing they’re concerned about is that the amount of testing is quite low so they don’t want to panic people. “In the Pilbara they are just taking a wait and see attitude, I think that they should do it for the region if they can do it.” There are now more than 100 active COVID-19 cases in the Pilbara region. A spokesperson from WA Health said if the direction from WA Health was followed there was no further risk to public health. “WA Health does not release a breakdown of figures due to patient confidentiality,” they said. “As we open our borders, COVID-19 cases will continue to surge. “To protect our families, loved ones and the community, vaccination is more important than ever, in conjunction with the additional public health measures currently in place, such as mask wearing, hand hygiene, social distancing.” Cr Long said the local government would continue to follow Level 2 guidelines. “We just do what the State Government says, you know, we don’t react anymore,” he said. “This (has been) going on two years now so our principle is always ‘we’ll do exactly as the State Government asks, no more, no less’.” ”This is not our program, it’s the State Governments program.” Cr Long said the main concern for the region was the possible impact of the virus on the Indigenous community. “We do think some of the Aboriginal communities could be an issue, we had the Premier himself up in the Kimberley just trying to push the vaccinations,” he said. “You can only do so much though, hopefully we’ll be OK.” In a press conference last week, vaccine commander Gary Dreibergs said it was important for people living in Aboriginal communities to get vaccinated if they had not been already. “There has been COVID in Aboriginal regional communities and the reality is people need to get vaccinated in those communities who aren’t vaccinated at the moment.” It comes as last week, Health Minister Amber-Jade Sanderson revealed that 55 people in the Kimberley communities of Bidyadanga and Beagle Bay had been falsely informed they were COVID positive. The false positive cases resulted in a temporary lockdown of Bidyadanga, WA’s biggest remote Aboriginal community, home to about 1000 people.