The City of Ballarat will implement a mass shutdown of almost all of its public buildings from Monday afternoon as the city goes into lockdown to try and prevent the further escalation of the coronavirus.
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Council has announced it will shut down the majority of its facilities as of 5pm on Monday, for an indefinite period.
However, the core range of council services will continue.
The facilities to close at 5pm will be:
- Ballarat Lifestyle and Aquatic Centre
- Art Gallery of Ballarat
- Her Majesty's Theatre
- Civic Hall
- Libraries
- Eureka Centre (MADE)
- Senior Citizens Centres will be asked to consider closing
The services to remain open for now include:
- Childcare facilities
- Family Day Care services
- Maternal Child Health services
- Meals on Wheels
- Home and Community Care
In a statement on Monday morning, the council said the COVID-19 outbreak was "an unprecedented event in recent history".
The plan to protect the city has been labelled the Response and Recovery Pandemic 2020 Plan.
You can watch the full press conference here.
The changes are likely to change as the situation evolves in the future.
As of Monday afternoon, there are still no confirmed cases of coronavirus in Ballarat, according to the Victorian health department.
What council's leaders said...
Ben Taylor, mayor
"Right now is a pretty extraordinary time, seeing the Premier of Victoria we are in a state of emergency, this is something that is really unchartered waters for us as Ballarat or as a community, we've never had this before."
"We need to look after our workforce, we need to look after our community, we need to look after most vulnerable. As a city we've got to do some changes and make some changes to that and do what is needed to be done.
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"Even though there might be some closures, it's important we stay active, stay in the community and continue to be looked after. So get out, go for a walk. This is not about social exclusion, it's about just being aware of your surroundings around you and your hygiene.
"If you're not feeling well, if you do have a fever, contact your doctor directly."
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Justine Linley, CEO
"We're trying to maintain social distancing, which is effectively the Ballarat buffer."
"This is uncharted and unique times.
"Over the weekend we enacted our municipal emergency plan in relation to the pandemic. I have appointed director Neville Ivey to head up the unit in response to the pandemic over the next six month period.
"The taskforce is making sure we have a healthy community, a healthy workforce. This is uncharted and unique times but having said that, we have a team here who are well versed at emergency management and response. It's the role of local government to dissipate in these types of activities and we will be taking a very active role in making sure we all come out of this at the other end the better for it.
"So today, I am also here to explain that it will not be business as usual in the city of Ballarat. We operate some 70 different services across our the municipality. We service a population of 111,000 people, there are 55,000 employees throughout our whole community. We are really keen to ensure the health of our community continues to survive.
"Our service delivery will change, there are essential services that need to be provided, but again our focus will be on the most vulnerable.
"Some of the details will need to be worked through, Neville Ivey and his team will be working through all the various ways we can continue to provide services. Essentials services will continue to be provided."
Neville Ivey, City of Ballarat coronavirus taskforce manager
"When you look at childcare and services that apply to the community, so those services will continue until we are provided further advice."
"There's been some really clear messaging come from state and federal levels.
"We're in uncharted waters, hopefully we can contain this thing by some of the measures we are announcing here today. What we have found is that with a number of services and events, number are down already and people are just not participating in community events like they normally do.
"We are working with Commerce Ballarat and other agencies as well, in terms of our immediate response, it's all about containment, any future knock on affect, we will continue to work with businesses and other agencies.
"The pandemic plan is our guiding principle around what we do next. We've seen already in the past two weeks how this situation has evolved and we'll be reviewing that situation daily.
"In terms of customer service we are reviewing that as well, we do get large numbers in terms of presentations directly face to face, we're reviewing how we can continue to do that in a different way. It will probably be considered at the moment, that we may for a period of time we may close the customer service.
"Early days in terms of planning about council meetings.
"I'm quite shocked and dismayed about the panic buying we are seeing, just purchase the items that you need and stockpiling essentials is not necessary.
"State schools will be largely directed by the Department of Education, the private schools can make their own determinations.
"What you're not seeing visibly is the work that's been going on behind the scenes, this is the first visible opportunity we have had to inform the community about our considerations of closures and things like that. There's been immense work behind the scenes. We haven't had an official position until this point, we have been directed by the relative authorities with the key messaging around hygiene, but it has flicked over in the last 24 hours or so to the state of emergency and what we now need to do as a community.
"We're working through our communications, we understand a lot of residents are not online or have direct access to the internet, so we're considering every option now. We'll be doing so in partnership with the state.
"At this stage, we feel that we will be requiring daily updates as this is a fast moving event that we have, but that will evolve."
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