Hot on the heels of Four Corners’ explosive report on Melbourne’s bungled hotel quarantine, the Hotel Quarantine Inquiry yesterday heard that a security guard at Rydges delivered food after catching COVID-19:
Rydges on Swanston became the source of 90 per cent of Victoria’s current COVID-19 cases after an outbreak there in May, the state’s inquiry into hotel quarantine has heard.
The security guard, whose identity has been suppressed by the inquiry, contracted COVID-19 while working there in May.
In evidence to the inquiry on Monday, the guard said he thought he had caught a cold while he was working at the hotel. He also noticed other workers there sniffing.
“I noticed some of the other guards were sniffing but I thought that was because it was a cold night,” the guard said in his statement tendered to the inquiry on Monday.
He said he was never told to inform anyone at the hotel if he had symptoms, nor was he sure about COVID-19 symptoms. He was never given training in COVID-19 or infection control before he began working there.
The guard told the inquiry he began to feel worse during his night shift and felt like he had a fever.
“I did not tell anyone at the Rydges hotel that I felt unwell – I thought it was just a common cold and nothing to worry about,” he said in his statement…
When his positive test came back, he was contacted by the Department of Health and Human Services and told to isolate with his housemates at home.
But by his last three days of isolation, he told the inquiry, he had no symptoms so he continued to deliver food.
The guard told the inquiry he was bored.
After that, he felt a shortness of breath again and returned another positive test…
Here’s more via the Herald-Sun:
The inquiry was told the guard was hired by two separate subcontractors hired by Unified Security.
He was hired by WhatsApp message after approaching the firms, and was only required to send a copy of his “entry level” security licence.
“All of the arrangements were made using WhatsApp and it was very casual,’’ he said in a statement.
“I was not asked to provide my visa or any hard-copy documents.
“I was not asked to undertake any extra training or read any other information about COVID-19 or infection control”…
“When I started at the Rydges Hotel nobody explained to me that some of the guests in quarantine had tested positive for COVID-19. Another security guard told me two or three days later,’’ he said in a statement.
He said when he started at Rydges, he was given masks and gloves and told to throw them away and get fresh ones after each food or toilet break.
“After two or three days the rule changed,” he said.
“(Name redacted) told me that there was a shortage of masks and gloves and that from now on I would get just one mask and one pair of gloves for each shift.
“He instructed me to put my mask and gloves in my pocket. He told me not to put my mask and gloves in my pocket in front of the hotel security cameras.’’
The rest is history. COVID-19 spread like wildfire throughout Melbourne, the city has been locked down for six weeks (with weeks more to go), hundreds of lives have been lost, and businesses will fail.
All because the incompetent state government took the cheap option on hotel quarantine and contracted out to untrained private security instead of using the Victorian Police, the Department of Corrections, and/or the Australian Defence Force.
