Executive Director’s Update to Principals #111: COVID Update - 28 Oct 2021
God of our hearts and minds,
God of our nervous systems,
as our eyes and ears try to take in another day of news,
our little bodies absorb the shock
of the biggest event of our lives. Help us make sense
of what we honestly feel.
Fear. Loneliness. Exhaustion. Anger. And in naming what lives in
our most inner selves, may we grow more human
with each other:
warm-blooded and social, communicative and relational, present to nurse, eager to soothe the people we more fully can be.
Amen.
~ The Corrymeela Community
COVID Update
Today’s Victorian Press Conference
Changes to the medical exemption process
In today’s Victorian press conference, Victorian Deputy Chief Health Officer, Professor Ben Cowie, announced changes to the Chief Health Officer Directives for the COVID vaccination medical exemption process:
- From 6pm tomorrow (Friday 29 October), only a copy of an Australian Immunisation Register (AIR) medical exemption will be acceptable proof of a medical exemption for any vaccination requirement in Victoria.
- An AIR exemption is issued by a medical practitioner and is accessible from an individual’s myGov account, or a printed copy can be used as proof.
- For those who have an existing letter of exemption or a doctor’s certificate, this will continue to be valid until Friday 12 November, but will need to be replaced with a formal AIR exemption by this date.
- For further details, listen to the announcement here.
CECV protocols for positive COVID cases within schools
As circulated in Exective Director’s COVID Update #103 (20 October), to better support schools to manage COVID-19 cases, CECV has been working with the Department of Education and Training and the Department of Health (DH) to revise and streamline how COVID-19 cases will be managed in schools.
Please refer to the revised process and templates (Word), and the PCC spreadsheet template (Excel).
Kinder transition program clarification
The reference to ‘kinder transition programs’ in the version of the School Operations Guide which will apply from Monday 1 November, relates to the transition of kinder children to primary schools.
Summary of key operational requirements
Below is a snapshot of the summary of key operational requirements published in the version of the School Operations Guide which will apply from Monday 1 November.
Next COVID Update
We will continue to monitor the situation and advise principals of any updates. Please liaise with the COVID Support team (see left hand column) or your Education Consultant with any questions or concerns.
Stay safe and continue to look after each other…
Every blessing.
Andrew Watson
Deputy Director of Catholic Education (Interim)