NT home quarantine Q&A

WILL you qualify for home quarantine if you go home for Christmas? Where will you need to be tested? ALL YOUR QUESTIONS AND MORE

WILL you qualify for home quarantine if you go home for Christmas? Where will you need to be tested?

Territorians have been asking a heck of a lot of questions after Chief Minister Michael Gunner announced a home quarantine trial on Monday.

Here are the answers to some of your questions:

Where is testing done?

Testing will be carried out at Covid-19 testing clinics.

Do quarantining people need to leave home to get tested and if so, is that allowed?

Yes, people in home quarantine will need to leave their home quarantine residence to receive their test.

Will healthcare professionals be doing the testing or will it be self-test kits?

Both will be available but all tests will be done at Covid-19 testing clinics under the supervision of health staff.

Previously it’s taken days to get testing appointments when they’ve been required after a hotspot has been declared. How will this work if there are many people returning home after Christmas who have to be tested every two days?

The NT Government would not respond to this question but said plans were in place to stand up additional testing capabilities if required as part of the pilot program.

Previously it took up to 72 hours to get a test result. How is this being mitigated given that time period doesn’t even cover the time between tests?

The NT Government would not respond to this question but said plans were in place to stand up additional testing capabilities if required as part of the pilot program.

Will there be more testing clinics opened (for example in the city) to allow for the thousands of tests required?

Plans are in place to stand up additional testing capabilities if required as part of the pilot program.

Will we be using the rapid testing or the standard testing?

The NT Government would not respond to this question.

Will there be a cost to quarantine at home, or to be tested if home quarantining?

All of home quarantine, including the testing, will be free.

How can people start home quarantining as part of the trial?

Expert teams are assessing all of the border arrival forms and they will contact eligible people.

Who gets to participate in the trial?

The pilot will be available to selected fully vaccinated returning Territorians – including returning boarding school students – who have a suitable place to quarantine and who meet all the criteria.

Is everyone on the trial doing 14 days or have some come out of Howard Springs and just have to do the remainder of their isolation period?

The pilot will include individuals and families, and the Emergency Operations Centre is responsible for identifying eligible people through their Border Control Forms and in supervised quarantine for the home-based pilot.

What areas will people be allowed to self isolate in?

People can home quarantine in a house, unit or apartment, hotel, or Airbnb, provided they’re living in an area that has a full vaccination rate of higher than 80 per cent.

Will it be broken down into suburbs or just Local Government Areas?

Home quarantine locations will be broken down into Local Government Areas, where the full vaccination rate exceeds 80 per cent.

Following the home quarantine pilots in Darwin and Alice Springs, the home quarantine program will be expanded to other areas as they hit the 80 per cent fully vaccinated mark.

How do people get from the airport to their homes? Is additional testing of taxi drivers etc required / enforced?

People entering home quarantine can be collected from the airport by their home quarantine hosts, or they can take a taxi and Uber providing they wear a mask.

How do people get to do home quarantine? Is it included on the border form or will it be automatic?

From late next month, people arriving in the Territory will be able to fill in a home quarantine application form.

How will people be checked up on?

Those in home quarantine will use the G2G app. Each day, sometimes multiple times a day, those isolating will receive an alert. They’ll be tasked with taking a photo of themselves at home and sending it in. If you don’t respond to an alert in five minutes, you’ll be sent another alert. Five minutes after that and authorities will phone you. 

READER QUESTIONS

How will people who don’t live in a local govt area know when their community hits 80 per cent vaccinated? Not everyone in NT lives in an incorporated Local Government Area, but still within an hour’s drive of Palmerston and Darwin

The Local Government Areas (LGAs) identified as suitable areas for home quarantine are Darwin, Palmerston, Katherine, Tennant Creek and Alice Springs. At this stage only Darwin and (soon) Alice Springs have met vaccination targets and are available options.

As the remaining LGAs reach their target and become available as suitable areas for home quarantine, this information will be communicated to the public via social media and our website. An area will be classified as a High Vaccination Zone a fortnight after it reaches 80 per cent full vaccination among residents aged 16 and over.

For those wishing to follow the Territory’s progress towards our vaccination targets, general data is available at coronavirus.nt.gov.au, updated weekly.

What rules will apply to children under 13, over 12 and over 16?

To be suitable for home quarantine, all who are eligible to be vaccinated, must be. Those who are unable to get vaccinated, such as children under 12 are considered vaccinated for the purpose of assessing their suitability for home quarantine.

Is the home quarantine program free? Will testing cost money?

Home quarantine and testing are both free. If returning double vaccinated residents do not have a suitable place of quarantine, they can be accommodated at a mandatory supervised quarantine facility at a 50% discount, so $1250 for 14 days.

If NSW has over 90 per cent vaccination rate, will it be changed from a red zone to orange or even green?

The assessment of another jurisdiction’s Covid-19 risk to the NT balances a number of risk factors simultaneously. Case burden and spread, testing and wastewater results, public health controls and hospital admissions are some of the factors considered by the CHO.

Widespread Australian Covid-19 vaccination will change jurisdictional risk assessments, but does not eliminate the need for this risk-based approach.

When will the traffic light system come into play and how will it be determined?

It is anticipated the traffic light system will be adopted when we reach 80% double dose vaccination.

Red will replace the current ‘hotspot’, orange is a lower risk jurisdiction and a green zone means there are no jurisdictional based restrictions in place.

If you live in a unit block, can you home-quarantine? And can you use shared facilities in the unit block, such as an outdoor area, if you wear a mask?

Residents in unit blocks can home quarantine if assessed as suitable, however, they cannot access any of the shared facilities and must remain within their unit for the duration of their quarantine period.

Do you have more questions? Ask them in the comments below and we’ll endeavour to find out the answers for you.

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