COVID-19 operations in 2021
Despite all the challenges created by the worldwide Coronavirus pandemic throughout much of 2020, Marine Rescue NSW volunteers selflessly maintained their solid commitment to serving our boating community and to our mission of saving lives on the water.
Unfortunately, as we enter 2021, it is now clear that despite everyone’s hopes, COVID-19 is going to be an ongoing issue for our community – and our organisation – for some time to come.
I thank all our volunteers for their steadfast dedication and recognise the resilience, empathy and strength of all our people across the organisation in trying circumstances last year. We must all now continue our resolve to play our part in maintaining our own and our colleagues’ health and wellbeing.
The onset of the pandemic in March 2020 led to the introduction of an escalating series of MRNSW risk management strategies aimed at helping safeguard the health and wellbeing of our volunteers and members of the boating community.
On a sliding scale, these included enhanced hygiene protocols, the cancellation of unit meetings, fundraising activities and community education, measures to support social distancing and isolation, on-call crew operations, online training and taking some strategic radio bases offline temporarily to ensure a healthy ‘workforce’ could be maintained.
Despite the frustrations of many of our members, our units proved agile and adaptable in following these requirements. I know it was a great relief to many of our volunteers to be able to resume their “new normal” operations, giving them a renewed sense of purpose and a chance to rekindle the camaraderie that is one of our greatest strengths.
In recent weeks, since the emergence of the COVID cluster on Sydney’s Northern Beaches and now farther afield, we have re-introduced a number of the measures for those units in the Greater Sydney, Hunter/Central Coast and Illawarra regions.
Various escalations and relaxations of various strategies may continue to be a feature of our operations for some months to come, particularly until the widespread distribution of the COVID vaccine.
In order to ensure that all units are able to keep up-to-date with the applicable practices as they are introduced or relaxed, we have now developed this web page as the source of our COVID-19 information. Rather than needing to constantly ensure they have the latest emailed advice, unit executives and members will be able to trust this site as the single source of up-to-date information.
I thank you all again for your cooperation and forbearance in the face of the coronavirus threat and your ongoing contribution to our mutual safety.
Stacey Tannos ESM
Commissioner