Some of the 10 suburbs recently identified as the state's coronavirus hotspots have large culturally and linguistically diverse populations.
Meanwhile on Saturday, nine public housing towers in Melbourne were placed under strict lock-down to contain emerging virus clusters.
Of the 3000 residents now unable to leave their buildings, many are from migrant and refugee backgrounds.
However, Ethnic Council of Shepparton manager Chris Hazelman is urging people not to blame these communities for the spread.
“Sadly, in these stressful times, people can look around for someone to blame, and this is bringing out longstanding issues against minority groups,” he said.
“Given the focus on lower socio-economic and migrant communities in lock-down areas, some will use this as an excuse to throw rocks at those communities, due to a pre-existing bias.”
Uniting Goulburn North East programs manager Sara Noori said there was "no room" to blame any particular community.
“We are all in the same storm and there is no evidence it's the multicultural communities who have spread this virus,” she said.
While Mr Hazelman acknowledged there was "a lot of emotion" in this discussion, he said negativity towards culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities was misdirected.
“There are many issues people don't understand,” he said.
“Low socio-economic and migrant communities have been identified as the most vulnerable from day one.
“These communities often live in cramped conditions, sometimes with large family groups, because they can't afford anything better.
“They often work in essential services such as processing jobs, meaning they can't work from home. And they can often take public transport to work.
“These are all circumstances they can't control, which put them at a higher risk.”
Victoria's Chief Health Officer Professor Brett Sutton has expressed concern that diverse communities could be misinformed by social media from their countries of origin.
Both the Ethnic Council and Uniting Goulburn North East have endeavoured to tackle this, creating COVID-19 messaging videos in languages spoken by Shepparton's new arrival communities.
“To contain the virus and reduce the impact, particularly for our CALD communities, we've provided constantly updated messaging in a way they can understand,” Ms Noori said.
“Many community members can't read and write in their own language, much less English, so we want to do this to provide information from credible sources.”
Thankfully, Mr Hazelman said he had not heard of locals from CALD communities encountering racism to date in the wake of the surge.
“The entire Shepparton community, including every socio-economic and ethnic group, has worked hard to keep the virus from gaining a foothold here,” he said.
“It's an amazing achievement that will hopefully continue into the future.”
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