The Victorian Government has announced that international flights into Melbourne will resume within a fortnight.
The state’s hotel quarantine system has already failed twice – in June last year and in February 2021 – resulting in local transmission and hard city/state-wide lockdowns. However, a number of changes have been implemented to prevent another failure, including testing returning travellers on four separate occasions (on days zero, four, 12 and 14) and reducing room capacity for family groups.
Last week we reported that Victorians were paying $1 million a day to run the hotel quarantine system, despite it being offline around half the time since its establishment in late-March 2020.
The Australian also reports today that Victoria also owes NSW tens-of-millions of dollars for quarantining more than 2600 of its residents, comprising $37.7 million owed for quarantining travellers when its program was suspended last year, as well as an undisclosed amount for quarantining returning Victorians since mid-February.
On a brighter note, the Victorian Government is still looking to quarantine returned travellers in regional areas, with 10 sites currently under investigation. The successful site will be modelled on the best-practice Howard Springs Facility in the Northern Territory; although it is unlikely to be operational for at least another six months.
The reopening of Victoria’s quarantine system will be music to the ears to the tens-of-thousands of Australians still stranded offshore. However, as a Melburnian that has suffered through multiple quarantine failures and 114 days of hard lockdowns, it makes me nervous.
Let’s hope the Victorian Government does not fail for a third time.
