🏡 SWANK Dispatch: Pandemic Protocols Are Not Optional—Even for the State
🗓️ 26 March 2020
Filed Under: covid regulation breach, emergency powers violation, unauthorised home entry, high-risk health exposure, environmental complaint, disrespectful visit, asthma risk ignored, government misconduct
“We were in the middle of eating lunch during a pandemic.
You entered anyway.
Unmasked. Uninvited. Unjustified.”
— A Mother Filing a COVID-Era Environmental Complaint
This letter from Polly Chromatic to Mr. Kendrick Neely at the Environmental Health Department is a formally composed yet seething account of a government visit that violated the law, her body, and her family’s safety.
The visit, conducted by social workers, was unannounced and intrusive — taking place on the very day the Emergency Powers (COVID-19) (Amendment) Regulations 2020 came into force.
⚖️ I. The Regulations Say: Stay Out
According to law:
Only essential workers could leave home
Social distancing was required
Visits had to be limited to urgent, essential duties
ID had to be shown
No entry to private homes was permitted except by health officers under lawful process
None of these conditions were met.
Instead:
Two unmasked women entered her home
They stood less than six feet from her and her children
They arrived while the family was eating, maximising viral exposure
They ignored her explicit verbal refusal
🌡️ II. What Was at Stake
• Polly is clinically vulnerable with severe asthma
• Her home was the only controlled airspace she had
• She was trying to protect four small children during a global health crisis
• The state showed up anyway — and treated her caution as defiance
“They are supposed to be protecting my children.
Instead, they put them at risk.”
🌍 III. The Department’s Own Mission Statement
The Environmental Health Department claims it is devoted to:
“assess, maintain, and improve the health and safety of the environment and residents.”
So why was Polly left to enforce public health law alone, against government staff?