Victoria’s hotel quarantine staffers to be vaccinated by time international flights return

By the time international flights touch back down in Melbourne, there will be a new rule for quarantine workers coming in contact with travellers.

All staff working inside Victoria’s hotel quarantine program will have to be vaccinated against COVID-19 when international arrivals again touch down in Melbourne from next Thursday.

Victorian Health Minister Martin Foley said COVID-19 Quarantine Victorian workers directly ­involved or indirectly exposed to returning travellers must be fully vaccinated to continue in those jobs.

While 95 per cent of the CQV and frontline healthcare workers involved in the program had already received at least one of the required two doses of vaccine, Mr Foley said he was confident all would have had their shots before the program resumed on April 8.

“We have passed 95 per cent of CQV staff having their first dose,” Mr Foley said.

“By the time airlines start rolling people in I am hopeful we will be close to half of the place having had their second dose.”

Mr Foley said the small number of quarantine workers who had not received at least one vaccination had been on annual leave, or had underlying issues such as pregnancy or medical conditions.

Luggage belonging to quarantined international travellers is loaded onto a coach outside the Holiday Inn on Flinders Lane Picture: NCA NewsWire / Andrew Henshaw

He said any employees who could not yet undergo their vaccinations would be moved into administration or other support roles outside hotels.

However, Mr Foley said he was not yet able to promise that all hospital staff working in COVID-19 areas would be vaccinated if Victoria was to suffer a substantial cluster in the coming weeks.

With a third of frontline healthcare workers from high-risk areas still to have their COVID-19 vaccinations under phase 1A of the national rollout, Mr Foley said there were not yet enough vaccinated medics to cover all positions in critical COVID wards, intensive care units and emergency departments during a major outbreak.

Although he “expects” all the remaining 1A healthcare staff to have at least their first jabs within the next fortnight, Mr Foley said the state needed assurances of long-term ­vaccine supplies from the federal government before he could commit to having only vaccinated staff working in high-risk hospital areas.

But Mr Foley said Victoria faced substantially reduced risk of COVID-19 leaking out of hospitals than Queensland had recently faced, and ­assured the community there would be enough vaccinated medical staff to cope with a small number of cases in the immediate weeks.

The Holiday inn on Flinders Lane which was previously operating as a COVID quarantine hotel being evacuated in February Picture: David Crosling

While Queensland transfers all COVID-positive travellers to hospital regardless of the severity of their cases, most confirmed cases in Victoria are housed in “health hotels” where they will be overseen by vaccinated CQV workers.

“If we had one, two, three, four, five, six or 10 cases … I am confident that if there was an outbreak today every person he would be working on those wards would be vaccinated,” Mr Foley said.

“We have seen outstanding levels of co-operation from our healthcare professionals for vaccination programs. But I don’t have, in the Victorian government’s kit, hundreds of thousands of doses for our frontline healthcare workers now.

“There is no such thing as no risk in this space.

“It is our goal, and we are nearly there, we intend to be there as soon as we probably can. The sooner we get more vaccine provision is the sooner we get there.”

Police outside the Holiday Inn on Flinders Lane Picture: NCA NewsWire / Andrew Henshaw

Opposition spokesman Tim Smith slammed the state government’s handling of the vaccination rollout.

“We need to get this vaccine rolled out right away,” Mr Smith said.

“I mean, what else do they have to do when they’re not taking any returned travellers and we haven’t had a COVID case for 33 days.

“This is not blame, this is ­accountability. The federal government is responsible for the importation and indeed the rollout of this vaccine, but it’s the state’s job to stick it in people’s arms.”

Mr Smith said he was “nervous” about the restart of the hotel quarantine program.

“Because this Labor government has for the best part of the year completely stuffed up hotel quarantine,” he said.

“I would have thought the cheapest and indeed the easiest thing for the Victorian government to do is to pay NSW to do it for us.”

Originally published as Victoria’s hotel quarantine staffers to be vaccinated by time international flights return