The Merimbula Chamber of Commerce and Merimbula Visitor Information Centre (MVIC) have called for businesses and the community to pull together, respect each other and visitors to the town while ensuring everyone has good COVID safe plans in place.
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At a Zoom meeting on Monday evening between chamber members, Merimbula Tourism and health professionals, chamber president Nigel Ayling said it was important to remember that currently there were no cases in the area
"We all have to play our part in this to ensure we stay COVID-free, our businesses can stay open, our residents can continue to move through the community and we can welcome visitors in a safe way. We all need to follow the Government Health Orders and Guidelines to avoid community transmission and going back into lockdown," Mr Ayling said.
He said that following two visitors who tested COVID positive in Merimbula last week there had been reports of visitors being treated badly, businesses telling them they were not welcome and people shouting out to people with Victorian number plates.
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"We need to treat all visitors to our area with respect," Mr Ayling said.
Manager of Merimbula Tourism Chris Nicholls said it was a significant time for the Sapphire Coast and how the area got through the pandemic together.
"It impacts everyone. There has been a significant downturn in visits, an enormous number of cancellations in July and August and the future isn't particularly rosy until around November.
It is important that all visitors are treated with respect and welcomed to the area, to ensure we can maintain an ongoing relationship with visitors that play a vital part of our economy.
- Chris Nicholls, manager Merimbula Tourism
"Now is how it is going to be for a length of time. We have to work together. It's an opportunity to link up and have a common message. This will keep happening," Mr Nicholls said in relation to outbreaks.
"It is important that all visitors are treated with respect and welcomed to the area, to ensure we can maintain an ongoing relationship with visitors that play a vital part of our economy. We need to realise that we are going to have to live with this sort of environment for some time, and that we need strategies in place so we can keep our businesses and economy open," Mr Nicholls added.
Dr Duncan Mackinnon, speaking from the South East Regional Hospital in scrubs and on standby, said it was easy for people to become complacent when there weren't any local cases.
"I see people in Coles and Woolies not using hand sanitiser; people slack off with time," Dr Mackinnon said.
There is a lot of testing and we will know when it is in the community. It is important not to knee-jerk when we have one positive case in the Valley.
- Dr Duncan Mackinnon, Bega GP
But he said those little actions - like always using hand sanitser - helped stop the chain of infection.
"There is a lot of testing and we will know when it is in the community. It is important not to knee-jerk when we have one positive case in the Valley.
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"We are testing anyone with a cold and telling anyone with cold to self-isolate," Dr Mackinnon said.
He urged people not to attend work with any symptoms of a cold or flu and said that paying sick leave was important so that people were not forced to work in order to pay their bills, if they were sick.
He recommended that for large workforces people work in teams.
"Try to work with the same colleagues so that if one is infected you don't lose the entire workforce. This helps to protect your business," Dr Mackinnon said.
He was asked about the capabilities of the health system locally and said there were 11 negative pressure rooms. These are rooms designed to isolate the airflow from infectious patients.
Patients who became sicker would be transferred to a tertiary centre where there was the expertise to manage them, Dr Mackinnon said. He said there were 50 per cent more ICU beds in the state.
"It is important that we concentrate on providing a scalable response which is appropriate for the level of cases. Last weeks cases were small in number and NSW Health and the local community got on top of this really quickly. There was no need for any further action, and we don't need to have a knee-jerk response every time we have a case."
Dr MacKinnon also said that "NSW Health commended both the Merimbula RSL and the Waterfront restaurant for the way they handled the recent cases and that is something that we all should be proud of."
Club Sapphire CEO Damien Foley also praised the response by the Merimbula RSL saying they had done an excellent job.
We are using our COVID Safe Plan as a bit of a marketing tool. It's important that we show both our customers and staff that we care about their safety.
- Damien Foley, CEO Club Sapphire
"We are using our COVID Safe Plan as a bit of a marketing tool. It's important that we show both our customers and staff that we care about their safety," Mr Foley said.
Myfanwy Appleton, the senior environmental health officer for council said health officers around the state were assisting NSW Health in helping businesses to maintain their operations in a COVID safe manner.
"We want to work with the local business community to ensure that they understand the Public Health Order requirements to have a COVID Safe Plan, and what that means on the ground," Ms Appleton said.
Mr Ayling reiterated that it was about being positive, ensuring that businesses had COVID safe plans, and responding in a measured and responsible way.
"We have been through the worst seven months in the history of Merimbula. Most businesses haven't had a normal weeks trade in seven months. There are no cases in the area, businesses and accommodation is open and everything that would normally be here, is here. Let's pull through this together," he said.
