Kylie Lang: There’s only one quarantine solution, and it’s time to use it

It’s time to admit hotel quarantine has been a complete disaster in stopping the spread of Covid and face the fact there is only one option left, writes Kylie Lang. VOTE IN OUR POLL

I wonder if the woman who scaled a hotel balcony on the Gold Coast to escape quarantine this week would have been so brazen if she was holed up in the Howard Springs facility.

For a start, she’d have had trouble fleeing anywhere, with the recently renamed Centre for National Resilience in a remote area some 30km outside Darwin.

Equally, she would not have had to force open a locked balcony door because unlike the Sofitel Hotel at Broadbeach – and countless other hotels where returning travellers are being cooped up – Howard Springs has abundant fresh air.

The 24-year-old, who had tested negative for Covid-19, would also have been able to have complete confidence of not being infected with the potentially deadly virus while in 14-day forced isolation.

To date, Howard Springs has a 100 per cent success rate in that regard.

The same cannot be said for hotel quarantine.

Plagued by breaches, mismanagement and incompetence, it has too often done the polar opposite of its purpose and spread, rather than contain, this menacing virus.

There have been more than 20 breaches across the country, forcing cities and regions into lockdown and causing enormous financial, social and emotional hardship, so I fail to see how the Federal Government can claim this type of quarantine has been 99.99 per cent effective.

So what’s the answer, particularly in light of our national vaccination rate still well below the necessary 80 per cent?

A QANTAS flight carrying returning Australians touched down at RAAF Base Darwin, with passengers transported to Howard Springs Quarantine Facility. ADF Supplied pictures

Michael Toole, a professor of international health at the Burnet Institute in Melbourne, has been banging on for months about the need for urgent improvements in our quarantine system.

A vocal advocate for change, Prof Toole rightly argues there should be fit-for-purpose facilities like Howards Springs in every state. Few would disagree.

He reckons five new facilities would set us back about two billion dollars – roughly half the weekly economic cost of lockdowns.

In monetary terms alone, that makes it a no-brainer.

However, even if these facilities were given the green light – and good luck getting the states and the Commonwealth to put party politics aside – it would take at least six months to build them.

In the meantime, hotel quarantine remains sorely lacking.

To be fair, hotels were never designed to house people who might be infectious in a pandemic. This turn of events has hardly been a blessing for them or the many people they employ who’ve been let go.

But, as Prof Toole has said, a national code of practice should be implemented that minimises airborne transmission, the cause of several breaches.

Quarantine Hotel Grand Chancellor has balconies to allow for fresh air, but many hotels don’t have them or lock them. Picture: Liam Kidston

Hotels were brought into the equation early, with Howard Springs initially only able to take around 850 people, but we are no longer in the initial phases of the pandemic – tragically – so the fact viable quarantine solutions appear to have been put in the too-hard basket is inexcusable.

Australia officially closed its borders and introduced hotel quarantine for all international travellers in March 2020, and in July this year it reduced the arrivals cap from 6370 to 3035 people per week.

Earlier this year, Howard Springs said it could take up to 2000 people, yet the Northern Territory Government claims the facility remains under-utilised.

Is it time to cut the cap further to 2000 arrivals?

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has been in hotel quarantine at The Westin in Mary Street. Pics Tara Croser.

I know around 30,000 Aussies are still waiting to get home – some of them desperate but unable to secure flights – and I’m not unsympathetic to the heartbreak of separation, but the tough questions need to be asked.

As Delta threatens to rage out of control, is it time to make Howard Springs the only quarantine site in Australia until other hubs are built?

Should our “hard” border stance be just that?

Our Olympic athletes have been afforded the safety and security of Howard Springs as they return from Tokyo.

All Aussies should be given the same assurances.

Kylie Lang is associate editor of the Courier-Mail

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LOVE

The selflessness of Olympian Cedric Dubler in sacrificing his own race in the final event of the gruelling decathlon to spur teammate Ash Moloney on to win bronze.

Small acts of kindness which we all need now more than ever: bouquet to Kenmore Village Florist for giving away free flowers earlier this week, inviting people to “take one and smile”.

How happy our pets are in lockdown. It really is a dog’s life.

LOATHE

People short on common sense. As the CHO Dr Jeannette Young said this week, if you need to ask if you’re an essential worker, you’re not.

The crippling impact of lockdown on our hardworking restaurateurs and café owners. Margins are slim at the best of times, and these are the worst of times. Hang in there!

Deputy Premier Steven Miles telling us now is not the time to buy furniture or electronics, being non-essential items, yet the Government allows these retail outlets to stay open.