Australia needs to increase the number of international arrivals we can house in hotel quarantine. The government should not have to choose between making an allowance for a lockdown-defying British pop star over the reported 40,000 Australians stranded overseas and migrants desperately needed for our economic recovery.
Today the national cabinet will discuss “good proposals” and ways to bolster the hotel quarantine system’s security after yet another breach. A Victorian security worker became infected with the UK variant of COVID-19. No other cases of community transmission have been recorded since he tested positive late on Wednesday.
So are any of the proposals expected to be discussed viable?
Purpose-built sites
Toowoomba construction firm Wagners has proposed building a 1000-bed site. Cooks, cleaners and security would live onsite, and travellers could land at Toowoomba airport.
The benefits: the first 500 beds could be ready in less than six weeks. While waiting for Commonwealth funding, the Wagner family could consider dipping into its 2018 $3.75 million defamation payout from Alan Jones.
Concerns about the spread of the virus through ventilation could be addressed with custom builds.
The drawbacks: Australia struggles to lure workers to remote locations to work under gruelling, occasionally risky, conditions on farms. Asking staff — including doctors, who would need to be nearby in case of severe COVID-19 symptoms or other illnesses — to isolate at a hotel in Toowoomba for weeks on end doesn’t sound like a lucrative recruitment offer.
Student housing
Universities, starved of cash-laden international students, have proposed housing arrivals onsite in student accommodation.
The benefits: universities might be able to rehire some of the staff they’ve laid off, and some experts say student accommodation is better suited to the needs of quarantined travellers.
The drawbacks: have you seen university accommodation? Regardless of COVID-19, I would insist on several deep cleans. And given that even state governments struggle, there are questions about whether universities would be capable of handling such a risky situation.
Remote quarantine centres
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has raised the possibility of using mining camps. The Northern Territory has used Howard Springs, a disused workers camp 25 kilometres south of the Darwin CBD, as a remote quarantine centre, housing travellers and those who can’t quarantine at home.
The benefits: remote facilities mean more space with units surrounded by fresh air, reducing the risk of transmission.
The drawbacks: when Australians were evacuated from Wuhan early in the pandemic, they were sent to Christmas Island to quarantine. This raised questions about human rights breaches, with limited medical staff and equipment initially.
It also sends a pretty poor message to remote communities that cities are happy to outsource their problems and increase access to health services when needed.
Vaccinate quarantine workers
Hotel quarantine workers are classified as critical workers and are expected to be vaccinated in the coming months. There have even been calls to ban international arrivals until this takes place.
The benefit: obviously the safety of hotel quarantine workers is pretty important given they’re doing such a risky job.
The drawbacks: there’s no evidence any vaccines stop people from catching and transmitting the virus. The vaccines simply limit the chance of severe symptoms, meaning asymptomatic employees could still be the source of community spread.
Toowoomba will be surprised to hear how remote and gruelling the conditions are there! 😉
Yes. The “concentration” camps should be good for the economy of Toowoomba.
Howard Springs (often referred to as a miner’s camp – it isn’t) is otherwise know as ‘Rural Darwin’, pretty well surround by people living on 5/ 10 acre blocks….. say something like Moorooduc on the Mornington Penninsula, which NOONE would call remote. It was built for FIFO workers building the Inpex Gas plant (since completed ….. gas led recovery???). It is basically a self contained village. And if I am correct, was offered as a quarantine facility by the NT Government some 6/7 months ago (and after being used as such for Wuhan returnees)… by Minister Nicole Manison if memory serves.
And this bunch of dud’s still won’t fulfill their responsibility for quarantine.
Toowoomba isolated? That depends on your definition. I agree it is not the same as a wealthy suburb of a major city – which is where doctors seem to congregate with hospitals (many private) in easy access.
Toowoomba is a substantial town, and Brisbane is an hour to an hour and a half away on a pretty good highway or by train. Based on experience with hotel quarantine so far it is hard to see why large numbers of hospital admissions need to be expected. Emergencies could be flown to Brisbane faster than an ambulance can get from Brisbane outer suburbs to a hospital.
For a regional community this is an opportunity to get a significant local employer and leverage it to get a hospital upgrade.
I accept that the proposed site out of Gladstone would be isolated and access to emergency medical treatment too distant without a very significant hospital upgrade somewhere in the region.
I feel like the cons thought up for this piece against isolated quarantine are really clutching at straws.
Having quarantine in the middle of our most populous regions would be laughed at big time by the people in 1919 dealing with the Spanish Flu.
Yeah! let’s keep all the arriving, possibly infectious people in the middle of the city because we don’t want the country people getting upset about the bad message we are sending that we only give resources when we need to.
Who cares why we send resources to regional areas. So long as they get the resources and we stop infections in the population?
And is Toowoomba really ‘remote’? I think that is a stretch.
Agree with you. And I noted, with a jolt, the excuse of the human rights breaches for the early use of Christmas Island?!? Really? Please expand on that one; without mentioning the human rights of refugees on Christmas Island!?!
The Federal approach to quarantine has been appalling.
In Perth it would be so easy to build quarantine centres in easy reach of the airport as well as major hospital facilities.
Such facilities could be designed with alternative use in mind in the future. Solving two issues in one stroke.
“Such facilities could be designed with alternative use in mind in the future.”
And what would that alternative use be my Marxist friend? A house of horror for the unvaxxed?
I am with Bill on this.
The key is ‘purpose built’, and permanent facilities, of cabins along the lines of Howard Springs, could be built very quickly, with separate air systems/decks etc.
These would suffice for the C19 pandemic, and future quarantine requirements, which should be anticipated.
While not in demand, as Bill suggests, maybe homeless shelter or other social needs could be met.
Capital city airport precincts would be very sensible locations, given available land close to tarmacs.
The suggestion of more remote locations is nonsense, given the need for specialised staff, and nearby medical support.
Yes. More gulags.