Dear School Communities,

With escalating contamination, the full impact of the Coronavirus is not yet known. We are closely monitoring the situation with our uniform makers in China and working to determine what impact this will have on our supply of uniforms to school communities.

The situation is very fluid with increasing cases being reported inside and outside of China. Factories are taking measures to guard against its spread and at this stage are not confident in employees returning to work for fear of contamination.

The factors below may impact our delivery schedule.

1. Chinese Government has extended the break with CNY by 7 days.

2. Local councils have ask all people traveling interstate during CNY to stay home for 14 days before they are able to return to work.

3. Logistics and transport will be impacted due to lower number of employees and too little stock available for shipping. This will create a flood of garments for despatch when the threat is under control, potentially causing further delays.

4. Australian Federal Government agencies have advised ship’s crew that if they have joined a ship, or have been ashore in mainland China and returned to the vessel from 1 February, they will not be permitted to come ashore in Australia within the 14-day window from last being in China. If any individual member of the crew has been ashore in China and boarded the ship from 1 February, the entire crew will be required to remain on the vessel for the 14 day quarantine period. For vessels, this means that they must remain at sea or off the coast of Australia for 14 days from when they left China. This tactic, which is beneficial in protecting the health of Australian citizens who work at the port and ship pilots, will cause delays and have a significant impact on vessel arrivals. While this is likely to impact all vessels based on delays and port congestion, in particular, this will impact express services to Australia and New Zealand where the transit time is less than 14 days.

This will also affect Airfreight

We appreciate your understanding and will keep you updated.

Our thoughts are with the families and communities of those affected by the virus during this very difficult time.