‘Fourth time’s a charm’: Victoria spruiks latest hotel program

The Andrews government has sought to assure Victorians it has learnt the lessons of past failures ahead of the resumption of international arrivals on Thursday.

Healthcare staff working at the Four Points by Sheraton in Melbourne's Docklands get their daily COVID test as the hotel prepares to become a quarantine hotel. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Andrew Henshaw

The Andrews government has sought to assure Victorians it has learnt the lessons of past failures ahead of the resumption of international arrivals on Thursday.

From 4:30am on Thursday, four flights were expected to arrive, delivering 106 passengers to two hotels, including Melbourne Airport’s Holiday Inn, which was at the centre of the cluster of 22 coronavirus cases that prompted Premier Daniel Andrews to lock Victoria down for five days in January and suspend all inter­national arrivals.

COVID-19 Quarantine Victoria Commissioner Emma Cassar said she was confident all infection control issues at the hotels participating in the scheme had been overcome, citing a ventilation overhaul, vaccinations of all staff, and changed protocol for guests with aerosol devices such as the nebuliser which was blamed for the Holiday Inn cluster.

“We’ve put a lot of work into thinking through the root cause analysis of the outbreaks and all the necessary steps have been put in place,” Ms Cassar told a press conference following a media tour on Wednesday of the Four Points by Sheraton quarantine hotel at Melbourne’s Docklands.

The Four Points by Sheraton in Melbourne's Docklands. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Andrew Henshaw

Victoria is expected to take 800 international arrivals this week, ramping up to more than 1000 next week.

Arrivals will be housed at the airport’s Holiday Inn and Pan Pacific and the Intercontinental and Novotel Ibis in Melbourne’s CBD.

The Holiday Inn in Flinders Lane will act as a “health hotel” for COVID-positive travellers and their close contacts, and the Element hotel in Richmond will house residents with other complex healthcare needs.

The Four Points hotel in Docklands is part of tranche of six other Melbourne hotels that are on standby to take arrivals as the numbers increase.

Acting Police and Emergency Services Minister Danny Pearson, who has responsibility for the program while Lisa Neville is on leave undergoing surgery, said he was confident the scheme was safe.

“We’ve tested, we’ve trained, as you would have seen through the hotel today. We’ve gone through these hotels room by room, floor by floor, to make sure they are safe,” Mr Pearson said, citing lessons from reviews by Deputy Chief Health Officer Allen Cheng and government agency Safer Care Victoria.

“This virus is not a stationary target. It is constantly moving, it’s constantly changing, it’s constantly evolving, and we have to stay ahead of it, and that’s why we’ve done the work, it’s why we’ve had the Cheng review, it’s why we’ve had the review by Safer Care Victoria, and we have absorbed those learnings, and we have refined the program.”

Victoria’s first hotel quarantine program was suspended in June last year after clusters at two hotels were found to have generated the state’s deadly second wave.

During a second iteration of the program, nine hotel quarantine workers tested positive for COVID-19, including one staff member who was also working at an aged-care facility.

The latest revamp represents the Andrews government’s fourth attempt at a successful hotel quarantine program.