Coronavirus: Evacuees arrive on Christmas Island as more flights from Wuhan outbreak zone on cards
Two chartered Airbuses have dleivered more than 100 Australian evacuees from Wuhan to Christmas Island.
The two-week quarantine period has begun for the 243 Australian evacuees who continue to arrive on Christmas Island from Wuhan.
By 3.30am AEDT on Tuesday, two chartered Airbuses had delivered more than 100 men, women and children to the island territory about 1500km west of the mainland. They are in isolation at the Christmas Island detention centre where they will soon be joined by more evacuees from Wuhan.
Professor Len Notaras, director of the National Critical Care and Trauma Response Centre which has deployed 24 medical staff to the island, said they were joined overnight by another six who travelled to the epicentre of the virus on a Qantas flight to repatriate trapped Australians.
“It’s been a tremendous national plan. A lot of planning has gone into it,” Professor Notaras told the Today show.
Mr Notaras said hygiene protocols were in place to protect the Qantas and RAAF onboard staff.
“Remember these 243 people who have come down thus far to the best of our knowledge are not necessarily infected,” he said. “The next 14 days is a period that we will be closely monitoring them so their safety is our prime consideration along with the safety of all those other people.”
On the Christmas Island tarmac overnight, children pulled their brightly-coloured suitcases towards waiting buses. One small boy baulked as an army officer directed him and others onto a coach destined for the detention centre. The child was calmed by the adults around him and took his seat on the bus.
Some of the new arrivals waved as the army drove them past waiting media at the airport. One man used a piece of paper to shield his face.
The journey home to Australia has been long for the evacuees. They waited out an hours-long delay in China before boarding a nine hour flight south to the RAAF Learmonth airbase on Monday. They then headed north to Christmas Island, which takes two hours.
Earlier, a tired evacuee from Wuhan gave a wave as the first Australians rescued from the coronavirus epicentre reached Christmas Island. Men, women, children and babies were among the 72 people aboard the first of four charter flights scheduled to bring 243 Australian citizens to the Indian Ocean territory.
The Australian Army and medics from specialist crisis team Ausmat met the evacuees on the tarmac and directed them to four small buses. In Chinese and English, one was marked “pink”, one “yellow” and one “blue”, and crewed by army personnel. A fourth bus was staffed by medics and was reserved for anyone who reported feeling unwell during the flight.
A heavy rainstorm eased as the evacuees walked down the steps of the Airbus wearing face masks and onto the waiting buses on the tarmac shortly after 9pm local time (1am AEDT).
They appeared to be mostly family groups.
The evacuees left Wuhan on a Qantas 747 and flew for nine hours to get to the RAAF Learmonth airbase on the West Australian mid-north coast on Monday afternoon. There, they were split into four groups for two-hour flights to Christmas Island. Children in face masks peered out the windows of the coaster buses as they were driven to the island’s immigration detention centre where they will spend 14 days in exile.
A second and potentially third rescue flight are on the agenda to evacuate Australians from the coronavirus epicentre of Wuhan to the Christmas Island detention centre, which could also be used to quarantine evacuated Pacific Islanders.
As 243 Australian citizens and permanent residents touched down in Western Australia on Monday en route to the repurposed refugee centre, plans were being put in place to get hundreds more out.
The Australian has also been told that talks are under way with New Zealand on a joint plan to evacuate Pacific Island and East Timor citizens stuck in Wuhan.
A Qantas Boeing 747 arrived at Western Australia’s Learmonth air base late on Monday, where the passengers were transferred to four smaller aircraft to fly to Christmas Island. Its passengers included five children aged under two and 89 under 16.
Chief medical officer Brendan Murphy said the evacuees would be quarantined in family groups for 14 days, but that period would be extended if a positive coronavirus case was detected in any group.
They will be locked inside the island’s main detention centre with a medical team and Australian Defence Force personnel who will remain on site during the quarantine period, running the centre and its kitchen.
Before the flight, about 600 Australians and Australian residents were registered with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade as being trapped in Wuhan. Some have opted to remain but government sources believe there will be at least another flight of evacuees.
Australians and Pacific Islanders will also be offered seats on an Air New Zealand charter flight. Those evacuated on that flight will be quarantined at a military facility at Whangaparaoa, about 25km north of Auckland.
Foreign Minister Marise Payne said Pacific Island citizens would go into quarantine on Christmas Island if Australia evacuated them. “We are having discussions with countries that have nationals who are stuck in China,” she said. “If they came to the Australian mainland, as part of a removal, the expectation would be that they would quarantine also for 14 days and expectation would be that would occur at Christmas Island.”
Australian Border Force chartered two Airbus A319s for the Christmas Island leg of the rescue mission, which is a two-hour flight.
Each plane was scheduled to make two return trips with about 60 evacuees aboard each time. The first Airbus touched down on the tiny Australian territory at 1am AEDT. The final group was due to arrive as late as dawn on Tuesday.
The centre has previously held only single adult male asylum-seekers and was the scene of rioting, assaults, mass protests and frequent self-harm between 2008 and 2013 when more than 50,000 people arrived in Australia by boat seeking protection visas.
Government contractor Serco formally handed over the management of the detention centre to the ABF on Monday. It will control who is allowed in and out of the centre for at least the next two weeks.
Australian Medical Assistance Teams leader Dan Holmes said clinicians had the skills and equipment to treat anyone who fell ill.
Passengers were given health checks before boarding the Qantas flight in China, and everyone on the plane was required to wear surgical masks throughout the flight. Australians who opted to fly out of Wuhan were told they would not be permitted on the flight if they had a high temperature. The Australian understands the cut-off was set at 37.5C.
The successful rescue flight on Monday came as the number of deaths from the virus jumped to 362, from 17,386 confirmed cases worldwide, including 12 cases in Australia. The death rate from the virus remains at about 2 per cent.
Additional reporting: Richard Ferguson, Adeshola Ore
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