**1. Introduction**

Local farms are critical for maintaining food security in Australia and abroad [1,2]. In response to the global pandemic of the severe acute respiratory syndrome—2 (SARS-CoV-2) virus, the causative agent of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), the Australian government and Department of Health (DH) highlighted guidelines for the management of COVID-19 across the country [3]. In farms specifically, the primary aim of these guidelines were to reduce or prevent the impact of COVID-19 on the health and productivity of farms through a COVIDSafe plan [4]. In Victoria, COVID-19 cases and outbreaks were ultimately managed by nine local public health units, including the Loddon Mallee Public Health Unit (LMPHU).

Not unique to Australia, seasonal farmworkers around the world are disproportionally affected by both communicable and non-communicable diseases [5]. In the COVID-19 pandemic, this was greatly exacerbated [6]. In Australia, foreign and temporary workers make up nearly 30% of the total workforce with a similar proportion among farmworkers [7]. When Australia shut its borders to international travel at the end of March 2020 [8], a shortage of farmworkers was quickly realised, emphasising the significance of imported labour from the Pacific Island nations through the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) scheme, a partnership created in 2005 [9]. As COVID-19 vaccinations were mandated in

**Citation:** Kabwe, M.; Dittmer, J.L.; Oxford, J.; Eyres, C.; Thomas, A.; Mahony, A.; Bolam, B. A Novel Approach to Managing a COVID-19 Outbreak at a Farm in Outer Regional Victoria, Australia. *Nurs. Rep.* **2022**, *12*, 717–725. https://doi.org/ 10.3390/nursrep12040071

Academic Editors: Richard Gray and Sonia Udod

Received: 17 August 2022 Accepted: 27 September 2022 Published: 7 October 2022

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**Copyright:** © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).

Victoria in October 2021 for all workers, only the PALM scheme provided a fully vaccinated farm workforce protected from the COVID-19 severe disease [10].

In late December 2021 and early January 2022, in Colignan, a small outer regional town in northern Victoria, there was a significant COVID-19 outbreak among seasonal farmworkers. This is a region where the economy depends on the agricultural production of citrus, grapes, garlic, melons, asparagus, and almonds [11]. This major outbreak provided insights into the vulnerabilities and challenges faced in the implementation of public health control measures in a culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) population.

This report highlighted the epidemiological investigation and public health intervention approach aimed at limiting spread and morbidity whilst striving to maintain the productivity of the farm during a period where food security in Victoria was being impacted by rapidly rising numbers of COVID-19 cases.
