Snakes and no beer: What life is really like inside the Northern Territory’s quarantine camp
As Victorian authorities finally look interstate for a quarantine solution after another failure led to lockdown, we take you inside the NT’s facility at Howard Springs.
National
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Premier Daniel Andrews has finally admitted Victoria needs a better hotel quarantine system after the Holiday Inn outbreak shut down the state again.
After boasting Victoria had a high standard system that other states were copying, delegates are now being sent to the Northern Territory to check on the real gold standard system that has been in operation since last year.
Victoria's facility will be a cabin-style, village-style environment, based on the Howard Springs facility, Mr Andrews says.
In November 2020 - four months ago - while Victoria was enduring crippling restrictions the Herald Sun experienced just how the Northern Territory was handling quarantine.
This article was first published on November 7.
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A budget holiday to Bali without the beer. That pretty much sums up the 14-day mandatory stay at the Northern Territory’s quarantine facility at Howard Springs, just south of Darwin.
A fee of $2500 buys a two-week stay in a single room in a camp originally built for fly-in fly-out workers. It’s 36 degrees and humid. Three meals a day are provided along with instant coffee, long-life milk, airconditioning and free to air TV.
Most importantly, you get a certificate at the end of it to say you’ve done your quarantine period. This is the magic ticket that gets people out of locked-down Victoria and into the other states and territories across Australia.
Since July 17, some 5622 people have quarantined in the Northern Territory – a few hundred in Alice Springs, and most at the Manigurr-ma Village at Howard Springs.
Of these, 3324 have been Victorians, desperate to escape lockdown to see their family interstate, look for work after losing their jobs, or make their way to Queensland for the AFL final.
The experience shows the Northern Territory has – so far – managed to deliver a quarantine program without any of the catastrophes that befell Victoria’s disastrous efforts.
The facility at Howard Springs is divided into two – half holding “domestic’’ residents, who have come from other states, and half set aside for international arrivals. The international returning passengers are deemed higher risk than domestic arrivals, and face tighter restrictions than those on the domestic side.
This week, there were 400 international arrivals, of which six were diagnosed with COVID-19 after arrival.
There were 430 residents on the domestic side of the camp. No positive COVID tests have been returned since the program began.
North Melbourne VFL players Laura Wright and Makeisha Muller, both 19, are in the domestic camp quarantining, with Laura bound for a month-long contract with Darwin club PINT FC, and Makeisha moving to Queensland to play for Maroochydore in the QWFL.
“I love it,’’ Laura said of quarantine, where she’s continued to play football, do workouts, and make new friends. “It reminds me of school camp.’’
Makeisha agreed, saying she’d also enjoyed making friends and keeping fit. “I’m enjoying the weather and working on my tan,’’ she said, from the balcony the teammates share with two others.
Another neighbour, stunt performer Zia Kelly, 27, is relocating from Melbourne to Sydney for work.
“I’m having a great time because I’ve got great balcony mates,’ she said.
The inquiry called to investigate Victoria’s quarantine program, which ran from March 27 to July 31, but was cancelled after security guards contracted COVID-19 from infected guests and started Victoria’s second wave, on Friday spelled out what a new quarantine program could look like.
The inquiry did not take evidence from the Northern Territory, but Victoria could look north for advice when it reopens to international arrivals.
Using a facility with outdoor spaces such as balconies or decks reduces interaction between staff and potentially-infectious guests. It’s also better for people’s mental and physical health.
Electronic arm bands, similar to those used in Singapore and Hong Kong, measure blood oxygen and temperatures of returning international travellers, again tracking their health while minimising physical interaction with staff. The international arrivals are also required to stay close to their cabins, unlike the domestic arrivals next door, who can roam at will inside their half of the compound.
Two separate work forces are being employed at Howard Springs with no crossover between domestic and international, limiting the possibility of cross-contamination should a staff member become infected.
And NT Police control the security, doing day and night patrols inside the facility, with just one private firm, Wilson Security (the only head contractor in Victoria which did not have a quarantine breach) taking a low-profile role patrolling the outer perimeter.
It takes 90 minutes from disembarking the Jetstar flight at Darwin airport to being shown to your room at Howard Springs, snacks and hot dinner in hand. NT Police and the Australian Border Force get passengers through the airport and onto buses with minimal fuss or delay. Elderly people and families with small children are taken to the front of the line.
The accommodation comprises rows of four demountable cabins, each holding a single bed, a chair, a desk, a small TV, a bar fridge and a kettle. The free Wi-Fi is erratic.
There are no restrictions on how much time you can spend on the balcony, without wearing a mask. Life happens here, with people eating, hanging out their washing, working out with weights, playing musical instruments and chatting to their neighbours. Kids draw on the footpath with chalk. Everyone wears thongs, singlets and sunscreen.
Residents are told they can have two 20-minute periods of exercise out in the camp. No-one polices it, and provided everyone wears a mask and stays 1.5m away from everyone else, no-one seems to care how long people stay outside, walking the paths.
Runners do laps of the facility before the sun comes up.
Once a week, residents get a 45-minute swim in the pool. It’s weather dependent and on swimming day, everyone watches the BoM app for signs of a storm. The swim is a highlight. So too is the ability to order groceries online, which are delivered to your room. Alcohol is banned.
Residents get regular text messages from the COVID task-force. The welfare team telephones for a general check-in on days two, seven, and the day before you leave.
Sure, you’re behind temporary cyclone fencing. The food comes in aluminium containers. There’s a lot of eggs, sausages and mashed potato. Really, a lot of sausages. It’s bloody hot. There’s snakes. And the mosquitoes are brutal.
It’s not a great way to spend two weeks of your life. But it’s not the disaster Victoria’s was. In fairness, Victoria’s program was bigger and riskier, with 20,496 people going through quarantine, of which 236 tested positive for COVID-19. It was set up in a hurry. But the numbers at any one time were similar, with 808 people the maximum number detained across multiple hotels in Victoria on any one day, compared to 830 held at one site this week in the Northern Territory.
Manigurr-ma Village was built in 2014 to house 3000 workers employed on a gas processing plant being developed offshore for Japanese giant Inpex. It was handed to the Government last year after the project was complete, and mothballed until March, when it was opened to house hundreds of Chinese-Australians evacuated from the COVID-19 ground zero city of Wuhan.
The NT Government realised it had a facility that was almost perfect for quarantine, and far superior to the high-rise hotels being used in the eastern states, with their tiny rooms, closed windows and no space for exercise.
And while the Federal Government’s national review of COVID-19 recommended a dedicated quarantine facility, the Commonwealth has no suitable infrastructure (apart from, potentially, immigration detention facilities such as Christmas Island). So Howard Springs is likely to be a major part of Australian travellers’ lives for some years.
The territory has also had the opportunity to learn from Victoria’s mistakes.
Almost 30 per cent of people left Victorian quarantine in the early days without taking a COVID test.
Here, COVID tests are carried out on days two and 11 in a no-nonsense Territorian way. And while you can refuse (provided you pay to stay another 10 days, something Victoria belatedly introduced), the nurses carrying out the tests don’t brook much argument.
Out on your balcony, mask down, tonsils and brain scraped, on to the next person.
Compare this efficiency to whatever Victoria did that led a third of detainees to refuse a test.
Each morning, nurses in full PPE knock on the door, take your temperature and ask how you’re feeling. Food is delivered by workers pushing trolleys and wearing masks and gloves. The welfare team wanders around at dusk for a chat.
For Victorians who have been locked down for four months, it’s a relatively easy transition to the COVID-normal real world the rest of Australia has been living. Onwards to a desperately-needed haircut. Coffee in a real cup, in a real cafe. And an icy-cold beer.
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