Coronavirus: Two women escape hotel quarantine in Western Australia

Two women charged after escaping from hotel quarantine when they arrived in Perth last night despite WA’s border rules have appeared in court.

Two women who reportedly escaped from mandatory hotel quarantine after arriving in Western Australia have been charged and faced court.

The pair, aged 19 and 22, flew in Perth from Adelaide to visit family.

Police said they escaped hotel quarantine at the Novotel on Murray St at about 1.30am before getting in a taxi and travelling to a unit block in Coolbellup.

Officers apprehended the women just before 9am on Tuesday and they are now in police custody.

The two women have each been charged with failing to comply with a COVID-19 direction.

On Tuesday afternoon Perth Magistrates Court was told when police called one of the women, she laughed and hung up the phone, the ABC reports.

The women appeared in court via telephone link and the matter was adjourned until Thursday.

BREAKING - two women have escaped from hotel quarantine after flying in to WA overnight.
Now in police custody.
The Acting Police Commissioner to update media shortly... more to come @9NewsPerth

— Jerrie Demasi (@JerrieDemasi) August 18, 2020

“I can advise that this breach is a very serious matter and apprehending these two women was an absolute priority for the West Australian police,” WA Police Acting Commissioner Gary Dreibergs said.

“Our offices did an outstanding job and apprehended the two women within hours of them leaving the hotel.”

Acting Commissioner Dreibergs said the women haven’t been tested for COVID-19 but the health department have advised they “don’t pose a significant health risk” to the wider community.

He said the actions of these two women were “very disappointing”.

“It’s a very serious matter. When people do breach quarantine it really does rock the trust of our organisation,” Acting Commissioner Dreibergs said.

RELATED: Follow our latest coronavirus updates

The women escaped the hotel at about 1.30am on Tuesday. Picture: Novotel Perth Murray Street/Facebook

Going forward, there will now be police officers stationed at hotels housing travellers that have been assessed as “high risk”.

Acting Commissioner Dreibergs the fact that the women “had no permission to be here in the first instance” would put them in the high risk category.

“It will be a risk assessment on every set of circumstances that comes in so we’re not going to put police at every hotel because we have had tens of thousands of people stay at hotels over this period of time and people have done the right thing,” he said.

“Unfortunately when we have people like this who do the wrong thing, we have to review our set of circumstances and within, we escalate what we do around managing that environment.”

This comes as Western Australia recorded one new COVID-19 case overnight, after a woman in her 20s returned to Perth from overseas.

She is in hotel quarantine.

The state now has a total of 647 coronavirus cases, with five of those active.

All of the active cases are Western Australians who have returned from overseas.