Language miscommunication or thoughtless act?

Iraqi removalists accused of driving to regional NSW despite being told one had Covid-19 reveal why they kept working until police escorted them home – as they blame a language mix-up.

NSW Police said three removalists have been charged for breaching public health orders in travelling from Sydney to regional NSW, whilst allegedly knowing they were COVID-positive.

The three men have now been charged with breaching public health orders and are set to face Orange Local Court on August 30.

The men travelled from West Hoxton to Figtree, before travelling to Molong, stopping in regional areas including South Bowenfels and Orange along the way.

Minister for Police and Emergency Services David Elliott said the actions of the men are dangerous.

“This thoughtless act has now placed our regional communities in NSW at the greatest risk so far with this pandemic,” he said.

“We know that the delta variant is highly transmissible, and it is unfathomable to think that, with all the public information and health warnings, people could so blatantly ignore the health orders.”

But Roni, who moved to Australia from Iraq, says they are not to blame and he had not known he was Covid-positive.

‘Of course I feel very bad, I feel very bad for what I have done, but it’s not my fault. I was driving and he called me from the health department, he told me to stop working and go home, I was already in Orange,’ Roni Shawka told the Daily Telegraph.

‘I gave them the number of my boss, I told them my language is not very good. I did not kill someone… I was doing my work, I swear to god I didn’t know I was positive.’

The men face $11,000 fines each and up to six months in jail.

The removalists, who work as third-party contractors for a large western Sydney firm, drove to Figtree near Wollongong on Thursday for a job.

Their employer Aram Yousif then told them they must get tested for Covid-19 under new restrictions brought in by the NSW government.

The new measures require ‘essential workers’ from Fairfield, Liverpool and the Canterbury-Bankstown areas to undergo regular tests if they are to leave their Local Government Areas – now the epicente of Sydney’s outbreak which has climbed to 1,242 infections.

After getting tests under these rules, workers only need to isolate if they have symptoms, something all of the men say they didn’t experience.

Having got their tests, the removalists left Sydney again at 4am the following day, stopping at South Bowenfels and Orange.

At 9.36am Roni Shawka’s phone rang, but with the language barrier proving challenging, he told the NSW Health worker to contact his boss Mr Yousif.

Mr Yousif received the call which instructed him to tell Roni he needed to isolate in the cabin of their removal truck.

He claims there was no mention about what should happen to the other men, who were not showing any symptoms.

‘These guys have not broken any rules. We just followed the instructions, we have not done anything wrong by the public … but whatever a court decides we will accept,’ he said.

Shortly after they left the job in regional NSW, the other two men in the team also returned returned positive tests.

At this point, NSW Health ordered a police escort to usher the group back to western Sydney.

In the last 24 hours police have attended just over 1,325 Covid-related jobs, with about 860 of those were reports from members of the community to Crime Stoppers.

In total, 240 fines were handed out with 53 of those $200 infringements for failing to wear a fitted face covering.

A further 23 people were charged with failing to comply with Public Health Orders.

‘This highlights that police are responding to the widespread concerns being raised by the community about breaches of the health orders,’ Metropolitan Field Operations Deputy Commissioner Malcolm said.

‘Clearly, no one wants to be living with these restrictions, but the best chance we have of getting out of this situation is if we all pull together to do our bit to help prevent the spread of COVID-19 in the community.’