Howard Springs quarantine camp opened to take patients with COVID-19 in the NT
THE former Inpex workers’ camp at Howard Springs will be used to isolate people who test positive for coronavirus (COVID-19) in the NT from today
Northern Territory
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THE former Inpex workers’ camp at Howard Springs will be used to isolate people who test positive for coronavirus (COVID-19) in the NT from today.
It follows as two more Territorians, a Darwin woman and an Alice Springs woman, test positive for the virus.
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Health Minister Natasha Fyles (see the video below) said people with the virus, who do not need to be cared for at Royal Darwin Hospital, will be moved to the former workers’ village, which has already been used as a coronavirus quarantine camp earlier this year.
“We will stand up the Howard Springs facility today,” she said.
“What will happen is that facility, as well as having the drive through pandemic clinic,
it will have individuals who need to be isolated from the community diagnosed with positive with COVID-19, but do not need hospital care.
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“To date everyone has been cared for at Royal Darwin Hospital if they’re in the Top End, or in the Alice Springs Hospital, but from now we will allow the clinicians to make the decision where someone can be cares for at Howard Springs, or the Royal Darwin Hospital.”
In February the camp housed more than 250 Australians repatriated from Wuhan, China for a 14-day quarantine period.
Later in the month, more than 160 Diamond Princess cruise ship passengers from Japan were also brought to the camp to be quarantined.
More than 2300 people have been tested for COVID-19 in the Northern Territory, with 21 cases diagnosed so far.
They include 19 Territorians, and a Queensland woman, and a man from New South Wales, who both tested positive while visiting the NT.
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