COVID-19 CONTINUES
It was something many feared, but few could predict its devastating impact – a second wave of coronavirus (COVID-19) infections in Victoria.
It happened quickly, too.
After launching into unprecedented action earlier in the year to help combat the pandemic, Victoria Police continued to rise to the challenge as a second wave of infections gripped the state.
Deputy Commissioner Rick Nugent said the Victorian Government issued detention orders swiftly and a policing operation had to be established overnight.
While the police response to the health crisis has continued without pause since the earliest stages of the pandemic in mid-March, it was during the second wave that operations and resources were rolled out at levels never seen before.
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POLICE LIFE | SPRING 2020
In early June, the number of people contracting the virus was falling daily, bottoming out on 9 June when no new infections were recorded. But less than a month later, on 7 July, new daily case numbers spiked to 191, a figure that exceeded the peak of the first wave by 80 cases. And just as quickly as the number of infections grew, so too did the police response. On 4 July, nine public housing towers across Melbourne, home to about 3,000 people, were placed into a hard quarantine in a bid to stop the outbreaks from spreading into the community.
“We were called upon very quickly to provide security at these sites and in one night we pulled together Operation Benessere, which involved hundreds of police being deployed to the towers,” DC Nugent said. “Once in place, our members did a fantastic job engaging with the community at the towers.
“These public housing towers have some of our most vulnerable people living in them, with varying and complex needs, and our officers did a great job engaging with the community there and going to community meetings.” At the same time this operation was being established, 10 postcodes in metropolitan Melbourne were placed under the same stage three restrictions the state had been under earlier in the year, which DC Nugent said created another challenging policing situation. “This provided a challenge in terms of the number of roads, streets and lanes that connect these areas to neighbouring locations that weren’t under these restrictions,” DC Nugent said. “We had to quickly develop a policing model that allowed movement through these areas, because several have major arterial roads running through them, while also ensuring people from these areas weren’t leaving and outside people weren’t coming in.”
