Sixty Covid-19 cases linked to Melbourne's Fitzroy Community School

There are 60 Covid-19 cases linked to a Melbourne school whose principal encouraged students to come to class amid the city's latest lockdown.

The Fitzroy Community School in Melbourne's inner-city is now the source of a large outbreak of cases after the alternative primary school with 120 pupils refused to close its classrooms despite the city being under stay-at-home orders.

Victoria's coronavirus response commander, Jeroen Weimar, confirmed the cases associated with the school have ballooned to 60 during Thursday's daily press conference. 

Principal Timothy Berryman last week controversially said children 'get runny noses' all the time and are more likely to get hit by a car than get sick from coronavirus. 

His 11-year-old son tested positive but Mr Berryman said the threat the virus posed to children was extremely low and mild illness was 'inevitable'.  

'It's a bit like saying some children will drown and some children get run over,' he told the Today show last Tuesday. 

'But we haven't stopped them going on scooters and riding their bikes and getting in cars. We accept that that risk is part of it.'

He has since claimed to The Guardian the 60 students out of 120 attending his school during the current lockdown fall into the exemption categories laid out in the public health orders. 

He said after inviting students back to school for a few days in June and July he was forced to reverse his decision because it was 'too stressful' and says students attending now have parents that are either essential workers or are considered 'vulnerable' in line with the public health act. 

'The irony is that I was under the rules and I ticked every box that you can tick, and I still got an outbreak at my school. That raises the question that this is inevitable,' he told the publication. 

His mother Faye Berryman - who founded the school - also appeared on Sunrise last week.

Mrs Berryman was cut off by host Natalie Barr after she defended keeping the school open to all students.

'The government are telling people only to send their kids to school if they are essential workers - not to do their own research and decide themselves,' Barr said.

Ms Berryman replied: 'We didn't want to be forced into doing something that was against our conscience.

'We always hope that the legal rules line up with the model rules, but teachers were being forced to go against their conscience.'

Barr then abruptly ended the interview by admonishing the educator and telling her she threatened the wellbeing of the wider community.

'The trouble is that Melbourne has hundreds of cases, you've got a growing outbreak and people in the extended community are at risk,' she said.

Melbourne has spent 235 days in lockdown since the pandemic began with schools closed to all but the children of essential workers since August 5.

Up to 60 children were attending Fitzroy Community

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