By Cam Lucadou-Wells
Greater Dandenong councillor Loi Truong is back at home after spending nine days in hospital with Covid-19.
On 6 October, Cr Truong was put on oxygen support at Monash Medical Centre due to his oxygen levels dropping to 92 per cent.
After two days, he was taken off oxygen assistance.
But remained under observation at the hospital until late Thursday 14 October.
“Thanks to all the nurses and doctors at the hospital. They worked so hard, they help many people and make them happy.
“They’re very kind, they work from the heart.”
Though feeling “bad and awful”, he clarified that he wasn’t required to be in the hospital’s ICU.
Cr Truong, who had received a single dose of Moderna vaccine, thinks he may have caught Covid from a customer at his Springvale South milk bar.
“I don’t know who the customer is, but it’s not their fault.”
He had initially suffered coughing, sneezing and breathing difficulties. His symptoms have since cleared.
“I feel normal. There’s no temperature or cough.
“People say I’m lucky that I have no symptoms but it makes me worried. It’s very very dangerous to not have symptoms.”
Cr Truong was planning to get his second vaccine dose as soon as he tests Covid-negative. He had no immediate plans to re-open the milk bar.
“The safety of the community is more important.”
He is the second Greater Dandenong councillor infected by Covid, with Cr Tim Dark testing positive on 23 September.
In August, Cr Truong’s milk bar in Darren Street had been named as a Tier 2 Covid site due to a brief visit by an infected customer.
On that occasion, Cr Truong isolated and closed his store until he received a negative test result.
He said at the time he was waiting to be vaccinated with Moderna because of its high effectiveness.
Cr Truong has also given away more than 30,000 re-useable cotton masks at his shop.
In the meantime, Cr Truong had been named at an IBAC hearing into taxpayer-funded staff being used for ALP branch stacking.
He said he’d been privately examined by IBAC but could not comment further.
