Alice Springs quarantine facilities over capacity after South Australians arrival surge

THE hotel quarantine facilities in Alice Springs are now over capacity, after an influx of arrivals from South Australia

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THE hotel quarantine facilities in Alice Springs are now over capacity, after an influx of arrivals from South Australia.

Police Commissioner Jamie Chalker told ABC Alice Springs there were currently more than 270 people under mandatory 14-day supervised quarantine in Alice Springs across the Aurora hotel and the Ross Facility.

He said the government had chartered a plane intending to transport about 70 people from Alice Springs to Darwin overnight but the plane was grounded after it hit a bird.

It comes as the NT today rolled back its hot spot declaration zone in South Australia to only include Adelaide and its surrounding suburbs.

Health Minister Natasha Fyles said hundreds of people had flooded into Alice Springs over the last 36 hours.

“We had a number of contingency plans if we were to see our main quarantine facility reach capacity and we then put those plans in place and we still had demand,” she said.

“We then had the situation where we were chartering a flight from Darwin to Alice Springs to bring people up to the Howard Springs facility, which has plenty of capacity but we had a bird strike to that plane which stopped those plans.

“We also had previously arranged with hotels in Alice Springs that if we reached a point where we needed rooms, they would provide them.

“I’d like to thank those hotels that did at very short notice but it was disappointing to see some hotels that had previously disagree to that not provide rooms.”

Ms Fyles said the Alice Springs’ COVID response team and quarantine infrastructure were under enormous pressure following the influx of South Australian arrivals.

“Last night, we saw an unprecedented effort from our frontline staff — health staff, police, Territory Families and other public servants in Alice Springs,” Ms Fyles said at a press conference this morning.

“What we saw over the last 36 hours was hundreds of people flood into Alice Springs.

“We had a number of plans, contingency plans, if we were to see our main quarantine facility reach capacity. We put those plans in place and we still had demand.”

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Several flights from Adelaide have arrived in Alice Springs since Monday.

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