Returning Australians could be sent to remote mining camps

Remote mining camps have been earmarked as possible quarantine facilities for Australians returning from overseas, after a COVID outbreak at a Brisbane hotel put millions at risk of contracting the disease.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk is pushing the national cabinet to consider shifting quarantine sites out of capital cities to avoid a widespread outbreak.

Australians returning from overseas might be quarantined in remote mining camps.Credit: Louie Douvis

Almost 5000 people were under quarantine orders in Queensland on Thursday after a man unknowingly infected five others from the confines of a locked room at the Hotel Grand Chancellor in Brisbane.

Ms Palaszczuk said her government would investigate whether sending returning Australians to quarantine in mining camps "stacks up" before putting forward a model for other states to copy.

"It's a matter for states and territories, but I think with this new strain, we have to put all options on the table and these are sensible, rational options," she said.

"The Howard Springs [camp] works very well in the Northern Territory and there's no reason why we couldn't do something similar here in Queensland or, if not, around the country."

The NT Government has been sending international arrivals to a vacant mining camp about 25 kilometres south of Darwin for months.

Unlike hotel quarantine inside the nation's CBDs, disused workers camps offer guests the chance to roam around in the fresh air and even go for a swim.

Ms Palaszczuk said her government was looking at "a couple" of abandoned sites, which need to be close to international airports, but she would not specify which ones.

"For a start, some of these mining camps are four-star, they are of a very good quality, high standard," she said.

"My understanding is some of them have - most of them - the ones we're looking at, have balconies, so there's a lot of fresh air for guests.

"Also too, there's the capacity for all of the staff and the cleaners and everyone to also be based on those sites as well."

Meanwhile, health authorities are confident they have now tracked down all contacts of a Brisbane hotel cleaner who sparked a city wide lockdown last weekend.

Chief Health Officer Dr Jeannette Young emphasised there was no evidence the 22-year-old cleaner had done "anything wrong" and she had worked hard with contact tracers and authorities. Dr Young thanked her again for her efforts while being unwell.

"So far we haven't had any positives, which is good, but we all have to remember that 14-day incubation period," she said.

"So those people do need to stay in isolation for the full 14 days from when they potentially had contact with someone with the virus."

Queensland Health Minister Yvette D'Ath addressed the fact that 129 Hotel Grand Chancellor guests have also been forced to remain for another 14 days' quarantine in a different hotel, saying she understood it was a "difficult choice".

Four people tested positive for the virus in Queensland in the past-24-hour reporting period – all were in hotel quarantine and none have been linked back to the Grand Chancellor cluster.