Gippsland is in a better position to manage and respond to infectious diseases five years after the declaration of the COVID pandemic, according to the Gippsland Region Public Health Unit.
The World Health Organisation declared the outbreak of COVID-19 a global pandemic on March 11, 2020.
The Victorian health department created nine regional public health units in 2020, including one in Gippsland, to help respond to local outbreaks. Previously, this was managed from Melbourne.
The team of disease detectives at the GRPHU was meticulously responding to each emerging case, tracking down contacts and keeping the community safe.
The GRPHU also was providing up-to-date and verified information to local health services and the community.
GRPHU prevention and population health manager Andi Connell was leading the epidemiology and data team at the time.
"One of the first cases in Gippsland required us to visit a shopping centre and study the CCTV footage to trace the cases movement and assess potential exposure risks," Andi said.
"We mapped links between cases and all the people they'd been with, tracing how one person may have infected another.
"It was intense. Every connection we uncovered played a crucial role in helping to stop the spread and protect the community."
Cases were initially low in Gippsland, but increased rapidly when lockdowns lifted and the more easily transmissible Omicron strain hit Australia.
Mandatory isolation and the requirement to report positive tests ended in October 2022 as the Victorian government had begun to adopt a "COVID normal" approach.
GRPHU infectious diseases physician Dr Alex Tai said the pandemic helped to usher-in raft of rapid public health improvements.
This included improved disease and epidemiology surveillance systems, mass producing rapid antigen testing and normalising staying at home when sick.
However, Dr Tai said another legacy of the pandemic had been an increase of vaccine hesitancy, which highlighted the need for trusted, local and verified public health advice.
Today, the GRPHU continues to monitor and support COVID in Gippsland, but now also manages and responds to 86 other notifiable diseases.
"We've learned so many lessons from the pandemic, and we are now better placed to respond to whole range of public health threats locally," Dr Tai said.
"We have built strong links, connection and trust with our local community, where this was previously not possible in a centralised state-wide system."