Coronavirus: Quarantine failures behind surge in cases

Victoria's Chief Health Officer Professor Brett Sutton. Picture: Getty

Dozens of infections in Victoria’s hotel quarantine system have forced a review of the way in which contractors interact with overseas travellers held in isolation.

Victorian Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said on Thursday the system had been reviewed to ­determine why so many infections had spread into the community.

Professor Sutton said some contractors had struggled to implement some of the infection protocols, which he said was normal when dealing with complex controls. But he admitted that in some cases there had been insufficient distance between staff and guests.

Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt said Victoria’s hotel-based quarantine system could be better. “Clearly, the hotel quarantine structure in Victoria could be ­improved,” Mr Hunt said, before ­Victoria backflipped on its request for defence personnel to help manage the system.

There has been speculation that the lack of social distancing in quarantine has included sex ­between security staff and travellers, but the government said this could not be confirmed.

Dozens of infections have flowed from quarantine facilities, making it one of the two key sources of the spread in Victoria. However, Professor Sutton said the system had been reviewed and ­improved. “Every single thing has been gone though,’’ he said. “Sometimes it was clear there wasn’t a robust enough understanding of the distancing that was required between a contact and staff. Sometimes it was a case of not having embedded all of the ­information (on) prevention and control procedures and hygiene.

“They had gone through training. Everyone struggles with ­embedding some of the complex procedures that are involved in ­infection prevention and control.

“That has all been reviewed. As I said, I am confident that it’s been improved really significantly over the past couple of weeks.”

It was announced on Thursday that up to 850 Australian Defence Force members would provide support to hotel quarantine monitoring, which was a major concession given the extent of outbreaks that have occurred via travellers.

However, Victoria then dramatically reduced the size of the deployment it sought, and police will now perform the role in hotels originally set aside for the ADF.

The leap in infections in Victoria is being blamed on family clusters and the effect of infections in quarantine. Dozens of contractors have been infected due to their exposure to infected travellers. This has then led to community transmissions when the contractors have returned to their families.

Victoria and NSW have taken the lion’s share of incoming overseas travellers, requiring expensive quarantine measures, with some flights filled with infected passengers returning home.

Those in hotel quarantine and staff overseeing them during their stay make up scores of cases, exposing the Victorian government to potentially long-term scrutiny over the way the system was set up.

Of the 33 new cases announced on Thursday, 26 were acquired ­locally, meaning there are real and growing concerns that the pandemic is reaching the point of a second wave.

Health officials believe one of the clusters in Melbourne’s southeast is linked to a worker from one of the hotel quarantines.

Professor Sutton said travellers were forced to spend 14 days in quarantine and not allowed to leave their buildings. The only ­exception was for occasional breaks outside under the scrutiny of health staff or contractors.