An NSW Health worker has shared a message with her neighbors after locals reportedly called the police on her for having a nanny visit her home. In a post to a community Facebook group, she said two police officers rang the doorbell at her home in Mosman, NSW, after neighbors dobbed her in. “I was taken away from a work meeting today (about how to use better our NSW Health data for research and evaluation in Covid no less) when two lovely police officers rang my doorbell,” she wrote. “A neighbor complained that our nanny is coming to our house. So here I am to clarify. “A nanny is permitted as essential care during all lockdowns. Our nanny is not from a worrisome LGA. They are tested when they are sick, as we are. They are otherwise at home upholding the rules.
“But irrespective of our circumstances … A nanny, or grandparent or another carer, is permitted to come to your house to provide essential care if you are working.” Under more excellent Sydney’s lockdown rules, people are not permitted to visit other people’s homes unless it is for an important reason. “Childcare” is one of the reasons listed on the NSW Health coronavirus rules website. The woman was backed up in the comment section by her local MP, the Liberal member for the North Shore, Felicity Wilson. “Thanks for your work,” Ms. Wilson wrote from her official Facebook account.
“And thanks to your nanny for their work to make sure your family can keep helping us all!” The woman who made the Facebook post said she was a public health officer with NSW Health. She wrote that the messaging from the ministry around what’s permitted under the lockdown rules had been unclear, “a bit crazy and confusing”. Among the activities that she said were “contentious” but permitted under the lockdown rules, she listed sunbathing on the beach and having a picnic, as long as it’s in a group no larger than two people. “Sunbathing on the beach (in no more than groups of two). This is recreation! Having a picnic (in no more than a group of two or as a household). Also recreation,” she wrote.
“Take a break from exercise and recreation in your group of two, and for one person to duck into the shops while the other waits outside. Both appropriately masked, of course.” The woman wrote that while some might consider those activities “socially unacceptable,” in her mind, failing to clean up after one’s dog is worse. “So dear neighbors, while I have to congratulate you for wanting to uphold lockdown rules to keep our community safe, please save our police resources for those hard-hitting issues please (which are desperately needed as my poor son stepped, barefoot, in a dog turd at Balmoral Beach last week),” she wrote.
