A Central Highlands Victorian family has been left scratching their heads after a member visited a Ballarat petrol station during an exposure period.
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A man has been forced to isolate for two weeks while his wife and children stay elsewhere, but the family remain unsure of what exactly they are required to do.
The woman, who asked to remain anonymous, said she had received conflicting information about who needs to isolate and who needs to be tested and was struggling to find answers.
"Trying to get information on who needs to do what, how the rest of the household's affected, about who needs to get tested, who needs to isolate, trying to call through to the contract tracing team, but we haven't actually been able to get through to them at all," she said.
"Then just trying to get consistent advice on what the implications are for the rest of us and just trying to work out how things will work over the next nine days.
"Working out if we should send kids to school, if we need to go get kids from school and then having to go through the logistics of essentially separating for nine days being in different households so that we're not all subject to isolation."
Just a complete lack of clarity. No one seems to be on the same page.
- A concerned Ballarat resident
The woman said she was told she needed to get tested but also told she could not book in a test, but could go to a drive-through testing site.
"We can't get clear advice. The Department of Health has said we absolutely have to go get tested and the testing clinic has said we can't, just him for now and then we wait and see what happens with his result and then we work out if we need to get tested," she said.
"What we've been told is if we go somewhere else, we are not subject to the same isolation so that means that we can move freely through the community.
"However, we're of the opinion that we need to wait until at least he's got his negative result before we can move around because if he does have it, we've all got it and then we're moving around in the community."
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The woman said she just wanted to know what the right thing to do was.
"It just sort of feels like everything's really wishy-washy and then the flow-on effect from that is really significant," she said.
"It's just a complete lack of clarity. No one seems to be on the same page. The nurses at the testing clinic are on a different page to the contact tracers, who are on a different page to what they've got on their website so I think it's just that the lack of clarity and lack of direction could probably be better."
When contacted for clarification regarding family and other contacts, the Department of Health and Human Services directed The Courier to its list of exposure sites.
