Highlights
- The shop owners say the infected person did not visit their business on the date and time stipulated by the DHHS and say they have CCTV footage to support their claims.
- The time discrepancy intensified on Friday, February 26, when the ABC published a report revealing conflicting information.
- The shop owners are calling for an investigation into their case, though the DHHS insists that a further investigation confirmed the department got it right.
Marciano's Cakes is a small family business in the Melbourne suburb of Maidstone which was listed as a coronavirus hotspot by the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) on February 5.
But the owners, Claudio Alvarez and his father Marciano, were oblivious to the news until they saw their business on television, days later.
“Saturday passed, Sunday passed, Monday came, I turned on the TV and saw Marciano's Cakes on the screen,” Mr Alvarez told SBS Spanish, shocked that nobody from DHHS called them about the infected woman's visit to their shop.
"We found out on the television."
They immediately closed the business and Mr Alvarez’s father, mother and an employee who were the only workers at the shop that weekend got tested for COVID-19 and went into isolation for 14 days.
Mr Alvarez was also tested because he was a close contact, but since he had not visited the shop that weekend, he was able to resume his daily activities after receiving a negative test result.
The Victorian Department of Health and Human Services maintained that a female worker from the Holiday Inn quarantine hotel- infected with coronavirus - visited the bakery on February 5 between 9:45am and 10:25am.
But Mr Alvarez says images captured by the bakery's CCTV cameras don't match the information provided by the department, who he claims "got it all wrong".
Quarantining hotel guest at the Holiday Inn near the Airport are moved to a new location in Melbourne. Source: AAP
"The time frame they give is very important, 9:45 to 10:25 in the morning, because at that time we had just opened the business. I have cameras which show that the first customers to come into the shop were men. There was no female customer at that time.”
He says that three men entered the business separately, at 10:15am, 10:31am and 10:48am, while the first female customer entered at 10:51am, but it's not known whether that individual was the infected quarantine worker.
The apparent discrepancy intensified on February 26 when the
According to the report, a health services clinic near Marciano's Cakes confirmed that the quarantine hotel worker infected with COVID-19 visited the clinic on February 5 between 9:30 and 10:30 am and could not have visited the bakery during the hours stipulated by the Department.
Mr Alvarez says he would like the department to launch an investigation into the matter to clear his business's name but believes his request will go unanswered.
“I don't think so [they will investigate], because I had two or three people call me to ask me the same thing. I had to explain that they had already called me a number of times. I don't think they know who they're calling or the purpose of their call. There's no communication between themselves, that's the problem.”
However, a spokesperson from the Department of Health and Human Services Victoria told SBS Spanish: "Further investigations by the Department confirm that the positive case visited the cake shop and that the shop was correctly identified as an exposure site."
"This is a highly infectious virus and we respond quickly and effectively to any cases of coronavirus in Victoria. When public exposure sites are identified they are published online as soon as possible to alert the community, so we can stay one step ahead of this virus and keep Victorians safe," the spokesperson added.
"We know from local and international experience that the UK variant is highly transmissible and therefore requires cautious management of close contacts and public exposure sites. Our contact tracing team continues to exceed all the national benchmarks."
'It's money I don't have'
The disruption to Marciano's Cakes' commercial activities was devastating for the owners, a migrant family from Chile who established the small business more than ten years ago.
"I would say that about 30 large cakes [went to the trash], cakes for thirty to fifty people, sweets, breads, empanadas... and many other things. Several casual employees lost their income too."
Mr Alvarez also incurred a bill of $2000 in specialised cleaning services since sanitising sites exposed to coronavirus require a specific cleaning process.
"It's money that I don't have."
He says initially there was no reason to question the DHHS, but after discussing with his father the details of the day the infected woman visited the bakery, he began to contemplate the possibility of a mistake.
How can you say that [the woman] entered the business at that time? Are you sure it was my business? I would like to know for sure.
