Susie O’Brien: Australia is not ready for home quarantine

At a time when the vaccine rollout is facing many issues, we deserve a concrete plan rather than meaningless thought bubbles about home quarantine.

Australia is not ready for home quarantine, even for vaccinated travellers.

It’s pie-in-the-sky lunacy given our stalled vaccine rollout.

If Prime Minister Scott Morrison had endured 20 weeks of hard lockdown last year like most Victorians, he wouldn’t even be considering it.

He floated the idea as a “first goal” that would allow “properly vaccinated” Aussies to go overseas for work, medical or compassionate reasons and return via home quarantine.

The idea isn’t a first goal, but an own goal giving popular Labor state premiers yet another federal suggestion to ignore.

Morrison suggested the idea in order to take attention away from the botched federal management of the vaccine rollout.

He says it could be in place by Christmas. But scientists say we need at least 60 per cent vaccination coverage — and ideally 85 per cent — before there is any sort of herd immunity, which would be essential for home quarantine to work.

Judging by the current glacial rollout in this country, we will be lucky to get to that point by the end of next year.

Even a doubling of the current vaccination rate wouldn’t lead to the rollout being completed before the end of 2022. So far only 162,000 Victorians have been vaccinated, and 1.4 million people across the country. In the 24 hours to April 17, only 22,000 doses were administered nationally, federal figures show.

Australia is not ready for home quarantine.

The federal government has ordered 40 million Pfizer doses but they won’t arrive until the last quarter of the year. Similarly, it could take up to a year for local manufacturing of vaccines to begin.

The fact that the states are stepping in to offer mass vaccination centres shows how far behind the federal government is with the rollout.

Victoria is getting on the front foot and offering to supply AstraZeneca to those under 50 who understand the risks. Three mass centres — which previously turned away those who weren’t frontline health workers — will begin vaccinating 1a and 1b category people this week.

The establishment of large-scale sites in Victoria are a good idea, but won’t offer an immediate fix.

Victorian Health Minister Martin Foley may say we can expect to immunise up to 100,000 a week within a fortnight, but it doesn’t seem likely given continued supply issues and growing vaccine hesitancy.

The death of NSW woman Genene Norris, which has been linked to the AstraZeneca vaccine, is tragic and hasn’t helped public confidence in the vaccination process.

Morrison’s plan for home quarantine involves only vaccinated people. He doesn’t seem to realise that even those who are vaccinated can get the virus and spread the virus.

As Dr Katherine O’Brien from the WHO explains, clinical trials show the vaccine protects people from disease, but scientists still don’t know if it protects them from transmitting it too.

So far in the US, nearly 6000 fully vaccinated people have caught the virus, with experts examining new variants as potentially affecting the effectiveness of the vaccine.

With an estimated 1000 COVID cases a week in this country if borders were opened, we can’t take a chance on home quarantine. While hotel quarantine has had major problems in the past, it’s more secure than allowing people to stay at home.

Morrison suggested the idea of home quarantine in order to take attention away from the botched federal management of the vaccine rollout.

Isolating people at home is more risky because it relies on personal commitment rather than professional standards.

The federal government has said no home quarantine program would involve ankle bracelets to monitor people, believing police door knocks and random phone calls are sufficient. I am not so sure.

I am not suggesting people at home would deliberately break the rules — we’re much too law-abiding in this country for that. However, I am sure there would be some who’d take advantage of being at home to pop to the shops, let the grandkids visit briefly, or take the dog for a quick walk.

In their mind these things would be calculated risks — but those returning from covid-rife countries would be putting everyone at risk.

There are also questions about what being “properly vaccinated” means. The proliferation of virus variants may mean some people are not fully inoculated against emerging strains.

We may never get to a point where we can agree that someone has been properly vaccinated because of the changing nature of the virus.

The notion of fully vaccinated Australians moving around the world more freely is a good one, but it’s some time off yet.

At a time when the vaccine rollout is facing so many issues, Australians deserve a concrete plan for supply and delivery rather than meaningless thought bubbles about home quarantine from the Prime Minister.