Groundhog Day has hit Australia’s failing hotel quarantine system after virus jumped rooms at Perth’s Mercure Hotel resulting in community transmission and a three day hard lockdown for the city.
The particulars of this case are as follows:
- ‘Patient zero’ were a couple that had returned from India after being permitted to leave Australia to attend a wedding.
- The virus jumped rooms, presumably via the ventilation system, infecting other guests, including a tourist from China who later travelled around Perth and on to Melbourne while infected.
So, while there are tens-of-thousands of Australians stranded abroad, the federal government permitted a couple to travel to India – the highest risk nation on earth – to attend a wedding, with the couple then taking up scarce quarantine capacity on their return and spreading the virus into Australia.
The federal government also allowed entry to a Chinese tourist, taking the place of a stranded Australian citizen, who then travelled far and wide (as tourists do), spreading the virus.
WA Premier Mark McGowan is rightfully livid at the Morrison Government, demanding answers as to why it has permitted travel and entry to/from high risk nations like India. He also stated that city hotels are “not fit-for-purpose quarantine facilities” and has demanded the federal government build special purpose quarantine facilities:
“The fact of the matter is the Commonwealth let him go to India recently,” Mr McGowan said.
“I don’t understand why they would do that, it doesn’t make sense to me”…
“People (are) going off to athletics carnivals in parts of Africa and Europe overrun with Covid, and then they want to come back of course.
“It is a risk and so that has to obviously stop”…
Mr McGowan said the Commonwealth had facilities purpose-built for quarantine but was refusing to use them.
“State government picks up the cost and picks up the risk … the Commonwealth doesn’t want to do it,” he said.
“I am getting to the end of my tether with the Commonwealth handing responsibility to the states and not helping.
“We are saying to the Commonwealth it is time they step up.”
The Australian Medical Association (AMA) president Omar Khorshid echoed Mark McGowan’s concerns, claiming that the existing hotel quarantine system is failing:
“These breaches have such enormous impacts on the lives of every Australian and we need to do everything we can to avoid them”…
“The best thing to do would be to develop new facilities that are actually built for this purpose and keep both the people in the quarantine and the quarantine workers safe from COVID”…
“Howard Springs is a facility that appears to have been successful so far in avoiding any transmissions and it is set up in a way that does separate guests much more than is the case of a highrise hotel”…
“Governments should be moving now to set up alternatives to hotel quarantine so that we are not still relying on these imperfect solutions in 2022.”
MB has argued from the outset that city hotels are totally unsuitable for quarantine purposes, due to:
- Their high density, shared corridors and shared ventilation; and
- Their location, meaning that when outbreaks inevitably occur, millions of people are impacted by shutdowns.
Instead, we have repeatedly called for Australia’s quarantine system to:
- House international arrivals away from population centres to low density accommodation in the regions;
- Utilise only highly trained and well paid staff;
- Ensure these staff work in dedicated teams (to avoid cross-contamination) and remain on site throughout their deployment (similar to mining FIFO workers); and
- Conduct regular testing of quarantine workers and guests.
We have repeatedly called for the federal government to build/fund quarantine facilities throughout Australia modelled on the Howard Springs Facility in the Northern Territory (below):
Facilities like Howard Springs offer obvious benefits over using city quarantine hotels, including:
- They are located away from major population centres;
- They provide abundant fresh air and space between guests and staff; and
- They provide greater comfort than being stuffed into a hotel room for two weeks.
Sadly, the Morrison Government has abrogated its constitutional responsibility for quarantine to the states, as well as abandoned Australians abroad.
This means that Australia’s number one defence against the virus will continue to fail, leaking COVID into the community, shutting down entire cities, and closing state borders.
People’s lives will continue to be interrupted, the travel and tourism industry will remain moribund, and the economy will to lose further billions of dollars of economic activity.
All because the Morrison Government is too lazy to take responsibility and fulfil its constitutional duties on border control and quarantine.
