NRL quarantine: Balcony bans after bubble breaches, NRL’s shopping spree revealed
The NRL has come up with a fix to balcony breaches in the quarantine bubble, after banning the families of players from interacting.
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Families are being treated ‘like prisoners’ on the Gold Coast as they are forced to secure their own windows with gaffer tape.
The situation is worsening by the day as Queensland Health keep upping the restrictions on the family members of NRL players and staff. They are just days into their two-week quarantine.
Having already been told they are unable to use their balconies and that the doors must be closed and locked they were given strict instructions to lockup the doors.
The doors do not have locks which means they have been forced to gaffer-tape their balcony doors shut and have been provided a step-by-step guide on how to do so.
They then must take a photo that they have secured balcony shut and send it to Queensland Health in order to meet the requirements.
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UPDATE: Doors have now been taped up as requested by Queensland Government and Queensland Health @telegraph_sporthttps://t.co/zMPVdi6odcpic.twitter.com/4gre4VHuLU
— Fatima Kdouh (@FatimaKdouh_) July 24, 2021
A coach contacted the Sunday Telegraph to tell say it felt like families are being treated ‘as prisoners’ as they undergo a strict lockdown. It is a far cry from the loose restrictions they thought they would be under when they flew out from Sydney this week. It has prompted some to reconsider their stray.
The Sunday Telegraph has obtained the letter the NRL sent to family members on Saturday.
It includes a step-by-step guide on how to lock up their balcony. Some partners are sharing the room with young children.
“In order to meet the direction received and to demonstrate our compliance we are seeking your assistance in securing your sliding glass door balcony to help prevent accidental use,” the letter read.
“Each floor has been provided with a number of rolls of gaffer tape. You will need three strips all approximately 35cm to 40cm in length.
“Place the first piece of tape high on the balcony sliding door, ensuring the tape wraps slightly around the window frame and slowly press and work the tape onto the glass sliding door.
“Once in place press firmly again to ensure all the tape has stuck to the surfaces.”
The letter goes on to tell them to “use the second piece to place it evenly over the latch”.
NRL FAMILIES HIT WITH BALCONY BAN IN QUARANTINE
—Fatima Kdouh
The 500 family members of NRL players and club staff have been stripped of their balcony privileges, as CEO Andrew Abdo warned anyone else who breaks quarantine rules would be sent home to Sydney.
Abdo broke the news to family members via a phone hook-up late on Friday night.
The Queensland Government made the decision to ban families from using their balconies after people were seen handing each other food between balconies and floor levels on Thursday.
It is against public health orders to exchange food or any other items with other items between people in quarantine. A written reminder of the “balcony do’s and don’t” was put in every dinner bag served to families on Friday night.
The names of the balcony breachers were passed onto both Queensland Health after an NRL integrity unit investigation. The NRL will not be taking any official action against the offenders.
Abdo also informed the NRL family hub, which is based on the Surfers Paradise, that anyone else who offends during the 14-day isolation period would be sent immediately back to NSW.
When asked on Thursday if all the families, not just the offenders, could be sent home, Queensland’s Chief Health Office Dr Jeannette Young said: “I’m getting very close to it.
“I’m very, very concerned about what is happening with these NRL players and you would have seen that imagery of that family hotel where they were sharing goods between verandas.”
“If I have any more breaches. I am very concerned. It’s for all of them (clubs and families). This is too risky. We just cannot have people deliberately breaching the rules.”
Abdo also advised that if anyone felt the environment was not suitable for their family that the NRL would facilitate their travel back to NSW.
The NRL did score a small win on Friday after Queensland Health agreed to allow the formation of five bubbles within the 30-level hotel building.
The bubbles will allow up to 120 people to have breakfast, lunch and dinner at the same time in one of the hotel’s dining rooms.
Families started arriving on the Gold Coast on Wednesday believing they would be able to have three meals a day in the dining room and walk around the hotel complex. But the Queensland Government, who had given the NRL an exemption to relocate the competition to the state, tightened restrictions as the Covid situation in Sydney escalated.
Earlier, the NRL cleaned out a local Harvey Norman store on the Gold Coast of its microwaves to help stressed out families as a star player revealed his “heavily pregnant” wife’s hotel quarantine ordeal.
On a day when the NRL integrity unit warned families that they risk restarting the 14-day quarantine period, officials worked frantically to improve the living conditions of nearly 500 people who relocated north of the border in a mammoth undertaking by the NRL.
Staff scrambled to buy every microwave in stock to ensure mothers on every level of the 30-storey family hub hotel could heat milk and provide meals for their children.
A shop to Woolworths for food and essential supplies was fast-tracked on Thursday night to ensure children and babies would not go another day without access to basics.
By Friday afternoon, a “common area” had been established on each of the 30 floors of the building where families had access to a microwave, juice, snacks, sanitary products, toilet paper and cleaning supplies.
The NRL had to negotiate a common area where people on the same floor could interact and collect food after the Queensland government tightened quarantine restrictions as the last flight carrying families landed on the tarmac at Gold Coast Airport on Wednesday evening.
It meant that the first 24 hours of the 14-day quarantine period in Surfers Paradise descended into chaos. Families started arriving into the hub believing they could leave their rooms for three meals a day in the dining room and would be free to walk around the hotel compound.
Instead, the state government demanded families had to stay within the confines of the level of their allotted room, leaving mothers without water and milk or the ability to heat milk for baby bottles.
New Zealand Warriors five-eighth Kodi Nikorima revealed the challenging start to the quarantine period left players, who are in their own bubbles on the Sunshine Coast, Gold Coast and Brisbane, feeling “helpless”.
Nikorima’s partner, Bree, is in quarantine and due to give birth to the couple’s second child next month.
“I’m in a boat where my partner is pregnant, she’s got four weeks to go and she has a toddler she needs to look after so trying to care for him and entertain him, when she can’t really pick him up because of her back,” Nikorima told The Saturday Telegraph.
“I look at players like Addin Fonua-Blake and Chad Townsend, their partners have three kids so, at the end of the day, I feel sorry for them.
“I wish I could do more. But I can’t.
“I know from my partner personally it’s such a massive sacrifice she’s making, hopefully I can repay that to her one day. I’m pretty sure most of the boys feel like that at the moment.
“We’re counting down the days and hopefully these two weeks go by fast.”
While Nikorima might be counting down the days, the NRL integrity unit warned families they risked having the clock on their 14-day quarantine restarted if there was another breach.
The warning comes after the names of the people seen handing food items to one another, between balconies and floors in contravention of the hub’s quarantine rules, were given to Queensland Health authorities.
The NRL is unlikely to sanction those involved but Queensland’s chief health officer Jeannette Young put the players’ families on notice, declaring that rule breakers risked being sent back to NSW.
ONE MORE BREACH AND THE NRL SEASON IS OVER
Peter V’landys has made an impassioned plea for NRL players and their families to behave and keep the game alive.
ARLC chairman V’landys and NRL CEO Andrew Abdo have worked around the clock to keep the season alive after NSW and Victoria’s Covid outbreaks forced the game to relocate.
V’landys said the future of rugby league hinged on the players, families and officials following rules while in Queensland.
“We totally understand Dr Young’s frustration,” V’landys said.
“We appreciate that we are guests and as guests we should be respectful and act accordingly.
“The players last year did a fantastic job in following the protocols. I hope they realise how important it is now not to put a foot out of place.
“It’s not only their salaries that are under threat, it’s every other player and also future generations. If the competition doesn’t finish it will cause severe financial consequences.
“Consider the game as a whole and do the right thing as you should be doing.
“I can’t stress it anymore. We are in their hands. The whole game is in the hands of the players, officials and families.
“If one does the wrong thing it has unfortunate consequences for everyone else.”
Abdo addressed the balcony breach in a late-night telephone hook-up on Thursday and pleaded with families to do the right thing or risk having quarantine privileges revoked.
He also asked families not to be publicly critical of the Queensland Government’s rules and quarantine conditions.
Broncos coach Kevin Walters said it was frustrating to see the game being put at risk.
“We are very fortunate to be in the position we are in with the NRL and the Queensland Government allowing us to continue for 2021,” he said.
“The Broncos are certainly very respectful and we are reminded on a daily basis from our Covid officers and the staff here the responsibility that everyone has in the bubble.
“It is a bit frustrating to see some breaches but everyone involved in the NRL is very grateful to be playing and we will keep ourselves on track and the daily updates are very helpful.”
The NRL still has seven rounds to play before a four-week finals series that is likely to be contested in Queensland.
INSIDE NRL FAMILIES’ QUARANTINE NIGHTMARE
NRL families have been issued a stern “reminder” of their obligations after an apparent breach of quarantine requirements, as one family leaves the NRL hub after a nightmare day one on the Gold Coast.
The NRL had feared some mothers, who are with newborns and up to four children, would leave the quarantine and head back to Sydney after the Queensland government tightened restrictions at the last minute.
The Daily Telegraph understands that fear has come to fruition with a family of a staff member leaving the 14-day quarantine, with a number of others also considering departing Surfers Paradise on Friday.
It comes after a message about a potential breach was broadcast over the hotel’s intercom system at around 6pm on Thursday night.
“The Queensland Police and Queensland Health have altered us to families passing items between the floors and the balconies. Just a reminder this is actually a breach of your requirements. However, your levels are your bubbles meaning you can mingle, chat with anyone in the corridor with anyone or in any room on that floor, that is your bubble,” the hotel employee said.
NRL CEO Andrew Abdo, who has been “fighting” to secure better conditions for the families, addressed the matter in a phone hook-up with families on Thursday night reminding them of the important of adhering to all rules while in quarantine.
Access to food had been limited for some in the bubble after conditions for their 14-day lockdown had been altered with little notice.
Initially the NRL had approval for a “two-zone system” separating the three red zone LGA families – Fairfield, Liverpool and Canterbury-Bankstown – from the rest of group.
That would allow people to move across the floors and other parts of the building, including the dining room for meals. But the 500-strong group, who had flown from Sydney on Wednesday, woke to the news that restrictions had been tightened yet again and they would be confined to their floors. Their meals will now be delivered directly to each floor of the hotel. The three NRL players in the group – Benji Marshall, James Roberts and Eddie Blacker, were told they would be able to train in the gym facilities one at a time, making sure the players did not cross paths.
Speaking on the condition of anonymity, one partner told The Daily Telegraph tougher restrictions have been a “shock to the system”.
“I have two small kids, we agreed to do the quarantine thinking we’d have more freedom. Thankfully the NRL is trying hard to help us out but if I had known it would be like this I probably would have stayed in Sydney,” she said over the phone.
It’s believed families were forced to go without the basics in the first 24 hours, including water and milk. One mother was left without baby formula after her supply ended up on a different floor to her allotted room.
Mothers had trouble accessing foods according to the dietary requirements of the children. Before the changes, families were able to choose what they ate in one of the allotted meal rooms but the tightening of restrictions has forced the hotel to provide everyone in the hub the same meal.
ðŸŽ™ï¸ | "Dear NRL families..."
— Telegraph Sport (@telegraph_sport) July 22, 2021
Listen to the recording of Andrew Abdo's hotel intercom address to NRL players' quarantining families.@FatimaKdouh_
has more detail:
👉 https://t.co/nZEPgnRdKnpic.twitter.com/sk0S6tKfNz
A number of people in the travelling party with coeliac disease were forced to go without breakfast. Other families had to wait up to three hours for their breakfast to arrive. Hotel staff scrambled to get food out as quickly as possible but under Queensland Health orders only a small number of hotel employees were allowed to deliver meals. On Thursday morning, hotel management issued an apology and said they would do everything possible to make the stay of families more comfortable and said like the NRL had been hamstrung by Queensland Health’s latest quarantine restrictions.
Before Abdo’s address, the NRL delivered a message via the hotel’s intercom directly into each room at around 10am on Thursday morning.
“This is a message on behalf of the NRL,” the spokesperson said over the speaker. “Dear NRL families, the past 24 hours have been challenging. Queensland Health changed restrictions overnight on short notice which require people to stay on their hotel level and avoid crossover from people on other levels.
“This is creating significant logistical challenges and reconfiguration of the hotel set-up. We are currently working with Queensland Health to address the changes and create a better environment for all of you.
“Firstly, we are working full-time to ensure deliveries of the urgent supplies you need, meeting your special dietary requirements and creating a more efficient way of being served your meals.
“We understand how difficult the conditions have been since you have arrived but we are working on a plan to provide you with more comfort and more freedom. Your well being is our absolute priority and we will keep you updated as the situation is improved for you.”
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