Coronavirus: breakout once again fails to spread
Australia is defying the pandemic, with the latest virus scare appearing to be contained even as the West Australian Premier refused to say whether his lockdown will end on Monday night.
Australia is defying the COVID-19 pandemic causing renewed havoc in the rest of the world, with the latest virus scare appearing to be contained even as the West Australian Premier refused to say whether his lockdown would end as planned on Monday night.
With no community transmission across the nation on Sunday, thousands of people marched in Anzac Day commemorations in every city except locked-down Perth and a crowd of 78,103 was at the MCG for the Collingwood-Essendon match, a world record attendance at a sporting event since the pandemic was declared in March 2020.
The day of remembrance and relaxation for most Australians was in stark contrast to rolling tragedies in Europe, Africa and India, now the world’s worst coronavirus hotspot, where there were a further 349,691 cases and 2767 coronavirus deaths in the 24 hours to Sunday morning.
Mark McGowan escalated his dispute with the commonwealth over quarantine arrangements, demanding a permanent reduction in the number of returned Australians through Perth.
The WA Premier on Sunday refused to continue his agreement to quarantine 1025 returned overseas travellers a week in Perth unless the commonwealth helped by opening one or more of its facilities, such as defence bases or immigration detention centres.
He ordered a three-day lockdown of Perth on Friday after the virus escaped the hotel room of a man - patient zero in the latest Australian outbreak - travelled to India in December to get married and returned to Perth with his bride on April 10.
Mr McGowan would not commit to lifting the lockdown in full when it is due to end at midnight on Monday.
The latest outbreak has now infected two Perth residents who were never in hotel quarantine but came into contact with a 51-year-old man who was infected while quarantining at the Mercure on his return from China.
A pregnant mother and her four-year-old child were also infected while quarantining at the Mercure.
There are now 359 confirmed contacts of infected people, but West Australian health authorities reported no new cases of coronavirus from the outbreak on Sunday.
Scott Morrison on Saturday agreed to WA’s request for a temporary drop in the cap on returned overseas travellers who could quarantine in Perth from 1052 to 521 people a week. It is the second time this year that WA has been granted such a concession. The first was an almost two-month reprieve in February and March after coronavirus escaped from the open door of a hotel room at the Four Points hotel in Perth, infecting a guard.
At the time of the first outbreak, Mr McGowan told the Prime Minister his government needed the reduced cap to address “early findings in relation to airflow and ventilation across the hotel quarantine system”.
In correspondence seen by The Australian, Mr McGowan wrote that WA expected to be in a position to safely return to its former cap of 1025 returned overseas travellers a week on March 26, 2021.
However, following the outbreak this month from the Mercure Hotel in which coronavirus again leaked into a hallway via the door of a hotel room, Mr McGowan has walked away from his commitment to quarantine 1025 returned travellers a week.
The Morrison government on Sunday rejected Mr McGowan‘s claims that commonwealth-owned detention centres should be used to quarantine returning Australians, saying the facilities were full of people, including criminals awaiting deportation.
“The commonwealth, states and territories agreed at national cabinet in March last year that as quarantine arrangements were determined under state and territory health orders, those jurisdictions would manage hotel quarantine,” a Morrison government spokesperson said.
“The commonwealth has contributed to the effort by continuously expanding the Howard Springs facility in the NT since the Halton review to 850 people a fortnight, and this will expand to 2000 people a fortnight from May.”
The spokesman said Defence bases were operational facilities and the risk to critical personnel was not acceptable.
“Defence bases also generally feature austere accommodation facilities, with shared dorms and bathrooms making them unsuitable for quarantine purposes.”
Infectious disease expert Peter Collignon said he did not believe Australia should reduce the cap on the number of returned overseas travellers. “So far, Australia has been very successful in stopping COVID coming into the country. Look at NSW, where I think there’s been over 150,000 returned travellers just in that state.
“Yes, there has been some leaks, but they’ve been well controlled and basically, the only disaster we’ve had so far with returned travellers was Victoria last year.”
National cabinet on Friday agreed to heavily restrict the flow of people out of Australia except for the most urgent circumstances, as well at to reduce the numbers of travellers returning from high-risk countries.
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said: “Hotel quarantine comes with risk, but every state must do its bit to bring Australians home.”
Queensland has previously called for the federal government to show in-principle support for a quarantine facility near the privately owned Wellcamp Airport west of Toowoomba.
Acting Victorian Premier James Merlino said: “We support all states in setting their international passenger intake to any limit they determine they can safely manage.”
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