Lisa Duncan,34,says she regrets not getting the vaccine due to anxiety. She tested positive to COVID-19 along with children Hayden,4,Haylee,8 and Nazariiah,10.Credit:Louise Kennerley
The funeral has been widely reported as the prime super-spreading event that led to an explosion of cases in and around Moree in the past week,but Ms Duncan says the family has been upset by the “disrespectful” way they feel the funeral has been blamed for the outbreak. Many locals – including mayor Katrina Humphries – agree there is more to the story.
In fact,the Moree Plains Shire Council announced that sewage tests had detected fragments of COVID-19 in Moree well before the funeral,and it was just one of a number of events,including a 21st birthday party on the last weekend of October,at which the circulating virus,in the mayor’s words,“spread like wildfire”.
The first positive cases were not identified until the following Monday. In the week since,the number of positive tests in Moree has jumped close to 100,and COVID-19 has also been found in the neighbouring shire of Inverell.
The surging outbreak is almost exclusively impacting Aboriginal people:98 per cent of the 94 active cases on Sunday were Indigenous,according to NSW Health. And the vast majority with the virus,at present,are young:90 per cent are under 40,and 43 per cent are under 20.
Carmel Duncan receives her second dose of Pfizer at Pius X Aboriginal Corporation.Credit:Rhett Wyman
They’re also overwhelmingly unvaccinated.
The vaccination rate of 86.6 per cent first dose in the local government area of Moree obscures the lack of uptake among the Indigenous population. In the majority-Aboriginal suburb of Boggabilla,near the Queensland border,less than 50 per cent of residents have had their first dose.