Living on a rural property in outer Perth, Megan Newman has had her fair share of mozzie bites.
In fact, the southern suburb of Karnup where she lives is notorious for its plagues of mosquitos that come and go, tormenting locals as they breed cycle after cycle on vacant lots and in the nearby Serpentine River.
But what Ms Newman didn t know was how debilitating a bite from the wrong mozzie could be.
Then, in March last year, just as the coronavirus crisis was gripping the world, she suddenly fell ill. We were building a little feed shed for my daughter s horses down the back of the property and on that day we absolutely got smashed by mozzies, Ms Newman said.
A seemingly innocuous mosquito bit has left a Perth mother in agony and unable to walk for long periods.
In March 2020, Megan Newman was building a shed for her daughter s horses on her property at Karnup on Perth s southern fringe when she was attacked by a swarm of mosquitoes.
One of the many bites she sustained would leave her crippled for a month.
Perth mother, Megan Newman (pictured) was bitten in March 2020 by one bad mosquito that would give her not one, but two viruses I got a really bad headache and was extremely hot and cold like nothing I ve ever felt before, Ms Newman told Nine News.
Advertisement
On July 4, when Premier Daniel Andrews ordered the immediate lockdown of 3000 people in nine inner-suburban public housing towers, he said public health advice buttressed the move. It was an unprecedented and extraordinarily austere response, one that the Premier said was necessary to curb an outbreak of coronavirus within at least some of the crowded housing blocks.
It may have been necessary, but the lockdown certainly was not well planned or well executed. Now Victoria’s Ombudsman, Deborah Glass, has found that the haste in imposing it led to breaches of the residents’ human rights. After visiting the towers during the lockdown, Ms Glass launched her own investigation into what propelled the decision and how the lockdown was managed.
The Victorian Government has refused to apologise to the residents locked inside Melbourne s public housing towers amid a growing coronavirus outbreak, despite the Ombudsman deeming the hard lockdown as unlawful.
The investigation, led by Ombudsman Deborah Glass into the treatment of public housing residents in North Melbourne and Flemington, found the immediacy of the lockdown on July 4 was not based on direct health advice and breached human rights.
However, she found a temporary lockdown to contain the growing coronavirus outbreak was warranted.
A lone woman is seen looking out the window of her apartment at the North Melbourne public housing flats.(Getty)