QLD has stepped up pressure on the Morrison Government to fund and build dedicated quarantine facilities to relieve pressure on the failing hotel quarantine system.
The latest clash has arisen after a local mining worker was infected with the COVID Delta strain after quarantining alongside international arrivals, with this worker subsequently spreading the virus across Australia:
The mine worker, from coronavirus-free Bendigo, flew into Brisbane on June 17 and was forced to quarantine on the fifth floor of the Novotel Brisbane Airport hotel until his charter flight to the mine site 540km from Alice Springs the next day…
It was during this nine hour stay in hotel quarantine, on the same floor as international travellers, when the man caught Covid-19…
Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt said it was up to Queensland Health to explain the “reasoning and rationale” behind putting a domestic traveller into quarantine in proximity to higher risk international arrivals.
However, the QLD Government has hit back, claiming the federal government has ignored repeated warnings that the hotel quarantine system was unsafe and ‘passed the buck’ to the states:
Deputy Premier Steven Miles [said]…”hotel quarantine is our single greatest source of COVID into our country and into our communities”…
“We have been saying for months and months and months now that hotel quarantine is not working.
The QLD Government has also demanded the federal government fund two dedicated quarantine facilities in Toowoomba and at Brisbane Airport to deal with returned travellers and to take the pressure off hotel quarantine:
“Both are about 1000 beds. I understand currently in hotel quarantine we have about 2300. If we were to build both of these facilities, we could substantially reduce our hotel quarantine operation. Greatly reducing the risk of leaks of COVID out into the community,” Miles said.
“So we would urge the Commonwealth to support us to go ahead with the proposal that is already planned and detailed and costed while we work through with them the details of how we would build a similar facility in their urban proposed location.”
Meanwhile, national cabinet will today consider tougher hotel quarantine restrictions:
Leaders will consider banning the practice of quarantining low risk domestic travellers next door to high risk international travellers, the problem which has led to Queensland’s COVID-19 situation…
The meeting will consider testing and vaccinating rules for those directly and indirectly working in the quarantine system as well.
For eight months, MB has called for quarantine to be shifted out of hotels into national facilities modelled on Howard Springs near Darwin (pictured below):
The spacing of guests and abundant fresh air makes Howard Springs the ideal quarantine facility.
The shared corridors and ventilation of hotels makes them ideal conduits to spread the virus between guests, staff and then into the broader community.
Accordingly, academics at The Conversation have estimated that hotel quarantine has caused an unacceptably high “1 outbreak for every 204 infected travellers” due to their “shared spaces and inadequate ventilation systems”.
The costs of shutting down major cities and closing state borders due to regular quarantine breaches far outweighs the costs of building and operating these dedicated facilities.
Sadly, the Morrison Government has been missing in action, choosing to defer to the states despite having constitutional responsibility for quarantine and controlling the nation’s purse strings.
This won’t be the last global pandemic either, and having robust quarantine facilities will hold the nation in good stead when the next global pandemic inevitably arrives.
