Australian Firm Under Investigation Over COVID-19 Outbreak
Six staff members have tested positive in the firm's Melbourne office but the firm said transmission likely occurred outside of workplace.
July 27, 2020 at 04:40 AM
2 minute read
Melbourne Skyline / Photo: Shutterstock.com
Australian law firm HWL Ebsworth is being investigated by a state workplace health and safety regulator after six of its Melbourne employees tested positive for the novel coronavirus.
"WorkSafe [Victoria] is investigating the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak at HWL Ebsworth," a spokesperson for the regulator said, but declined to comment further.
"We have been liaising with WorkSafe in accordance with their standard coronavirus (COVID-19) response process. We have not, however, been advised of any formal investigation," a spokesman for HWL Ebsworth said in a statement, and declined to comment further.
Six staff members from the firm's Melbourne office tested positive for the virus in early March, although the firm said in a statement it did not believe they contracted it at the workplace.
"None of those team members' work stations or offices were located within close proximity to each other, and having liaised closely with the Department of Health & Human Services on the circumstances leading up to the infections, it is believed that the transmissions occurred outside of the office," the firm said in a statement.
Once the infections became apparent, staff on the office floors where the infected worked were sent home for 14 days and could not return to the office until they had had two tests.
"The most recent positive case was almost three weeks ago and pleasingly, no other team members within our Melbourne office have tested positive since that time," the firm said.
Melbourne and Victoria state have been suffering a second wave of COVID-19 infections, which has caused many firms to delay plans to reopen their Melbourne offices.
The state's daily new infections count had dropped to below 10 on most days in April and June before rising sharply in July. On Monday, Victoria reported its worst ever daily rise in new cases of 532.
Related Stories:
Firms Delay Melbourne Office Reopen Plans After Coronavirus Spike
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