The Victorian hotel quarantine debacle has glossed over a more important question: why are we using hotel quarantine at all? Other than New Zealand, virtually no other country forcibly requires returning residents to be essentially imprisoned in a hotel room for 14 days.
At the time the Morrison government introduced the policy, on March 29, the main concern was people getting off infected cruise ships and planes and failing to quarantine at home.
Back then the concern was justified — especially since almost all the COVID cases earlier in the year had been returning travellers (community transmission remained low during the first wave).
But that was six months ago. We now live in a very different world.
For a start, there’s the obvious inconsistency. If you test positive to COVID-19, you are asked to quarantine at home. That is, the Australian government trusts you to do the right thing. By contrast, if you are returning from overseas and test negative, you are still required to stay in a three-star hotel for 14 days.
Up until July, this was all at taxpayer expense (Victoria and ACT have not yet stipulated any costs for returning travellers, but theses states are also not currently accepting international flights).
So to clarify: if you test positive to COVID, please stay home. If you happen to come from another country and test negative to COVID, you’re staying at the Rydges for two weeks.
It’s also baffling that, unlike other countries such as Singapore, the Australian government treats residents returning from every country the same way. If you come from India (92,000 cases per day) you are subject to the exact same requirements as if you came from Vietnam (one case per day).
Moreover, the quarantine period is excessively long. While the virus’ incubation period does extend to 14 days, the median time for symptoms to present is around five days. Taiwan, the gold standard of COVID management, requires only five days of quarantine for those returning from low-risk countries.
Then there’s the other issue: as Victoria showed, hotel quarantine is far from foolproof. It relies on a number of checks and balances and human intervention (not to mention, it’s expensive — travellers are charged around $3000 for the stay). While Victoria was the high watermark of incompetence, it certainly was not alone — NSW and WA have also had their own hotel quarantine issues.
Given Australia has (rightly or wrongly) pursued a policy of elimination, it would make far more sense to allow returning travellers to quarantine at home under strict conditions.
The most obvious would be to require a negative test: provide a rapid test upon return and then utilise a location tracker like electronic ankle tags (or the Singapore/Canada model, which involves check-ins via phone). If a person under home quarantine breaches quarantine (or has a guest in their residence), they would be heavily fined ($10,000+) and forced to spend three weeks in a hotel. Random in-person checks could also be used.
There are an estimated 25,000 Australians currently overseas wanting to come home, and who knows how many non-Australian residents who are desperate to see family. Rather than allowing them to come home and taking common sense measures, the government continues to force an expensive, slow and failed system that is used almost nowhere else in the world.
Its really not that hard.
The purpose of quarantine is to establish an environment in which, if you have the disease, you have no contacts and thus the chain of transmission is broken.
We quarantine people returning from overseas with negative tests because tests can be negative early in infections, but people are presumed to have been in contact with people with COVID. They have, afterall, just gotten of a long flight in a giant metal cylinder with several hundred strangers. One can assert that this is overly cautious, but then we know a relatively few number of cases with large numbers of contacts can set off a really big outbreak. So caution at source is more effective than mopping up afterwards. See Victoria.
You could argue that we should quarantine returned travellers at home, but that becomes cost and resource prohibitive to enforce. We tried it first, remember, and no-one complied. The difference is that home quarantining a few-dozen Australian cases under close supervision in the community can be managed, but quarantining a few hundred arrivals per week is another story unless they are all in one place. Even then, clearly, its not easy. Sure, technology might work to improve this but it doesn’t seem obvious that its cheaper.
We do actually quarantine test-negative cases, as all close contacts of cases are also quarantined regardless of test-status. Same reason as for returned travellers – exposure and possible false negatives. I believe its been in the news that sometimes we quarantine all test-negative people – which is called a lockdown.
As for the incubation period. Yes, the mean incubation period is about a week but there are a few percent of cases for whom its 14 days or longer. Its not one in a million. So any of those cases could spark an outbreak and its easier to do a few more days quarantine than mop up the results. See Victoria.
There are 25000 Australians wanting to return home. Section 51(ix) of the Constitution makes their quarantine a Commonwealth responsibility. You know what I want? I want to know where the funded quarantine facilities are for that many people.
We also quarantine domestic passengers landing in some states.
This is the reply I wish I had the patience to write. To add a little value beyond just “+1”, I think it’s 5% of cases that have an incubation period of over 14 days, and 1% over 19 days. These were figures from a few months ago, so it wa s back in the ‘Morrison is not actively hindering things epoch’, but I don’t know newer ones.
Thanks Altakoi
Sure we may have an
” expensive, slow and
failedsystem that is used almost nowhere else in the world”but look at our death rates and infection rates compared to the rest of the world.
My daughter has just returned to Belgium- voluntary Quarantine- can go out shopping etc. Look at their appalling rising virus infections and deaths! I will take the Australian way thankyou.
I see it reported today that Belgium is recording nearly all deaths as Covid related. Unless it’s a road accident or something. I think the recording method is causing differences in statistics.
Complete nonsense. Why is Australia so special. The farm industry Is suffering big time because They cant get the picking done.. where is the plan. Thats the problem with many Australian governments, and I like Dan Andrews, but the decisions are being made by people who have never experienced any preasure to get things right. What are they doing in the halls of power… plucking ideas out of a hat?
One of the most frustrating things about the conversation on covid management in Australia is how well we’ve fallen for this myth of personal non-compliance as being a primary driver on infections, whereas in fact the failures are institutional:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-09-30/coronavirus-experts-back-covid-19-home-quarantine-for-travellers/12715344
So basically we ended a program that was working quite well and replaced it with one with ended up causing a second wave of infections, deaths, misery and economic hardship. And yet for some reason huge segments of the population are utterly convinced this approach is the only thing keeping them safe!
It’s long past time we started taking a risk-based approach to managing this virus, as our current approach is wildly disproportionate.
…why are we using hotel quarantine at all? Other than New Zealand, virtually no other country…
One look at the burgeoning case numbers in those other countries might provide the answer.
Three of the four cases reported in NSW today were from quarantine, to add to that answer.
I’ve noticed that the biggest burgeoning number is the number of people who don’t die from it. It’s exploding.
It might be a good idea if this bloke’s articles were sent out to assessors before being published.
A pressurised can of “Bullshit Repellant” might be useful in the short term.
Just why this mercantile mediocrity is being published at all raises questions about Crikey’s editorial competency.
If he and his kind had their way we would be in a similar position as the US of A and Sweden where their economies are imploding under the weight of the scared, sick and dying.
Freeing up community movement prematurely is not going well around the globe.
“Other than New Zealand, virtually no other country forcibly requires returning residents to be essentially imprisoned in a hotel room for 14 days.”
Does Singapore count as a country?
The point the author is making is that different rules apply, in Singapore, based on the country from where you are arriving. You can stay at home (with technology and regular checks) – not everyone goes into a hotel.
We can all play this silly game. Try Japan.
The cost has certainly has stopped some from visiting elderly relatives and been an expensive exercise for those who have returned for compassionate reasons..
May I suggest a researched list of the Countries and what are their policies and success rather than just throw out the statement.
We still have lots of very expensive accommodation on Christmas Island in Spud’s Resort.
There are sound reasons for a policy requiring supervised quarantine for incoming travellers/home bound citizens. Hotel quarantine seems to be less than satisfactory and maybe it would be better if we managed quarantine at no cost to participants in Australian government owned facilities such as those greatly under-used on Christmas Island.
Personally, I’d prefer to be on Christmas Island, maybe spartan but with space and fresh air, rather than in a hotel room with a window I can’t open.
I understand Christmas Island is pristine, beautiful and unique, having been uninhabited until the late 1800’s. What a pity our generation have made it into a penal colony rather than an exclusive eco resort
You nailed it. Morrison announced on 28 Jan that Chinese-Australians returning from Wuhan and surrounding province would stay on Xmas Island. 241 people spent 14 days there, none being infected, before being flown home to cities around Australia:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-17/australian-evacuees-from-wuhan-to-christmas-island-arrive-home/11971174
Australia was far from the only country to do this with returning nationals, mainly from China, early on in the pandemic.
For some reason, Morrison didn’t think any other returnees justified being sent there for quarantine and flicked the whole thing over to the states instead of getting the Dept of Immigration and Border Force to do what they’re supposed to do. Budget reasons?
CBD hotels don’t strike me as being well designed to harbour quarantined arrivals, and obligatory home quarantine seems not to have been very successful in Europe and the UK, where case numbers are now burgeoning.
Simply put, those arriving by plane are assumed to have been in potential contact with the virus, while home quarantine, despite requests to isolate with possible symptoms, is almost certainly observed only by (some of) those who’ve already had a positive test.