Jo’s Curry House owners ‘left in the dark’ by WA Health

The owners of Bunbury’s first restaurant to be listed as a COVID-19 exposure site have spoken out about the experience, saying they were “left in the dark” by WA Health, and only found out they were an exposure site after receiving a text from a friend. The restaurant owners have also faced a barrage of social media abuse and hoons driving past the restaurant shouting vile comments. On January 20, a COVID-positive case linked to the Kemerton cluster dined in a small group at Jo’s Curry House in Bunbury. It was a Thursday night, usually attracting between 50 and 60 seated customers across the early and late sittings. By the afternoon of Monday, January 24 — after trading all weekend — the restaurant was listed as a COVID exposure site on the Healthy WA website, and anyone who had been at the venue between 5.45pm and 8pm that night was told to get tested immediately. Restaurant owners Joanne and Sachin Pachnanda only found out their restaurant was an exposure site when they were inundated with text messages from friends and family. “A friend texted me a screenshot of the website listing us as an exposure site,” Mrs Pachnanda said. “That was how we found out. “A notification would have been better that hearing it from someone else.” Mrs Pachnanda immediately rang the COVID Hotline to ask what to do, but was left on hold for “what seemed like a lifetime” before being told to call a different number. She called WA Health and after another lengthy wait, she spoke to a representative who couldn’t provide any information. “She sounded shocked I would even call them,” Mrs Pachnanda said. “I was given hardly any information at all and got off the phone feeling more scared and upset than before. “I thought there would be a package or something telling us what to do, or that I would at least be given some information about what to do next.” Mrs Pachnanda said customers from the night of the exposure had since informed her they were not contacted by WA Health. To this date, Mrs and Mr Pachnanda have not been asked to provide the restaurant’s manual sign-in register to WA Health. “We’ve really tried to do the right thing here, but we were left fully in the dark,” she said. “Any bit of information would have been appreciated, but we were left to deal with it and pick up the pieces ourselves. “We weren’t even given information on how to do a deep clean or how to re-open safely. We’ve been working from information we’ve found on health websites from over east.” In the following days the Pachnanda family have received hate-filled comments on their social media, and since reopening have endured verbal attacks from people driving past shouting hateful and racist comment during dinner service. “That has been really upsetting,” Mrs Pachnanda said. “Thankfully we have received a lot of community support as well.” Bunbury MLA Don Punch took to social media on the restaurant’s second night of trade, urging community members to support the business. Mr Punch told the Herald small family-run businesses like Jo’s Curry House, who put their “heart and soul” into their work, making it “heartbreaking” when they took a hit like this. “Joe’s Curry House is so typical of many small businesses where people put their heart and soul into it,” Mr Punch said. “I was able to go out there for dinner recently and see quite a few people really enjoying themselves. “It’s good to see Joe’s Curry House bouncing back as a small business. That’s really symbolic of the spirit of small business here in Bunbury.”