Reflections of a day volunteering at the Victorian COVID-19 epicentre

On Friday 17th July, Australia confirmed its highest number of positive COVID-19 cases in the pandemic so far, the same day, I volunteered with Disaster Relief Australia as part of the integrated task force serving the public housing community at Australia's major pandemic hot spots in North Melbourne and Flemington.

The terms "Coronavirus" and "COVID-19" entered the Australian lexicon with our first confirmed cases in January 2020, just as the devastating 2019/2020 bushfires peaked.

Thick hazardous smoke haze hung over Melbourne from January to March, as bushfires across South Eastern Australia destroyed 18.6 Million Hectares (an area the size of France), killed many people, razed thousands of homes and communities, and devastated wildlife (including rare and endangered species) with an estimated one billion animals lost.

To get a sense of what Australia was dealing with as COVID-19 arrived, check out this photo journal:

It was with bushfire recovery in mind, not Coronavirus, that I joined Disaster Relief Australia. I expected my first deployment would involve chainsaws, rubble, and bushfire relief operations in rural Australia, not pandemic operations in metropolitan Melbourne.

Naively, I didn't think COVID-19 would impact Australia. Since moving to the lucky country in 2002 I'd watched other parts of the world deal with SARS (2003), Swine Flu (2009), Avian Influenza (2010), MERS (2012), Ebola (2014), and Zika Virus (2015), to name but a few of the many epidemics and potential pandemics of the past 20 years. None of which impacted our isolated, sun baked corner of the world.

Fast forward to July 2020, and the daily news coverage of Melbourne (a city awarded most livable in the world six consecutive times) had moved from months of hazardous bushfire haze:

To daily reports of a worrying and rapidly growing COVID-19 spike, with thousands of residents across nine public housing tower blocks in inner Melbourne initially placed in hard lock down, unable to leave their homes, and Melbourne as a whole returning to strict stage-3 restrictions for a second 6-week stretch.

That's when the call came through from Disaster Relief Australia for volunteer members to join the integrated task force at the North Melbourne and Flemington community centres, where hundreds of staff from all branches of emergency services, health and community services, and sub-contractors, along with hundreds of police, have been working around the clock to support and enforce a very challenging "hard lock down".

Who are Disaster Relief Australia?

Disaster Relief Australia (DRA) unites the skills and experiences of Australian Defence Force veterans, emergency responders and civilians to rapidly deploy disaster relief teams across Australia and around the globe.

For more see: www. disasterreliefaus.org/

Volunteering at the towers with DRA

After 17 weeks working from home, with minimal human contact outside of occasional trips to a supermarket, and months of the 24/7 pandemic news cycle, it took some soul searching before I decided to volunteer at Australia's hardest hit hot spot, but I'm glad I did.

My day at the towers was as much about learning as doing. DRA was able to connect with various agencies, and utilise the extensive experience gained through military training and deployments, to advise on planning and organisation, whilst helping improve adherence to procedures, and even provide basic communications.

What I witnessed were hundreds of dedicated people working hard to provide for all the physical and well-being needs of the residents in hard lock down, a huge logistics effort working with additional safety and hygiene requirements, and a very effective testing and policing operation. Everyone was polite, calm and purposeful with a common mission. This was a very different view to the one I'd gained through the media in the lead up to deploying.

Given the scale and complexity of this task force, DRA was also able to understand mistakes made, and compile areas for improvement for future operations.

With future COVID-19 hot spots likely, as well as COVID-19 controls now being a major factor when managing future incident and relief operations for disasters such as seasonal bushfires and floods, the learning gained from involvement at the North Melbourne Community Centre operations will inform future DRA operations.

After a 12 hour day at the towers with great people, I felt the calm I imagine only someone who conquers a fear of flying, or snakes might feel. I still have a very healthy respect for COVID-19--it is a very nasty virus--but any irrational fear I had is gone.

My day volunteering was followed by the best nights sleep I've had in 2020.

To donate to to Disaster Relief Australia go to: https://hub.benojo.com/connect/org/disasterreliefau/donate