Coronavirus: Quarantine inquiry to look into hotel staff

The hotel quarantine scheme inquiry will examine how nine workers became infected with COVID-19 while working at hotels since late July.

Hotel Grand Chancellor in Melbourne. Picture: Tim Carrafa

The inquiry into the Andrews government’s bungled hotel quarantine scheme will examine how nine workers became infected with COVID-19 while working at quarantine hotels since late July.

The Australian revealed on Tuesday that the nine included a Department of Health and Human Services staff member, a Victoria Police member, two ­Alfred Health employees and five employees of catering and cleaning company Spotless.

While Victoria’s hotel quarantine program stopped taking international arrivals in June, the Brady Hotel and Grand Chancellor Hotel in Melbourne’s CBD have since been involved in providing quarantine for vulnerable community members who cannot­ safely isolate at home, includ­ing residents of housing commission towers.

Both have since been closed, with the Novotel South Wharf replacing them this week.

Opposition legal affairs spokesman Ed O’Donohue wrote to the hotel quarantine board of inquiry on Wednesday, urging inquiry chairwoman Jennifer Coate to examine the nine cases following media reports.

Mr O’Donohue noted Alfred Health chief operating officer Simone Alexander had given evidence regarding the approach to infection control at the hotels.

“The evidence to the inquiry, that was essentially uncontested, is that infection control procedures Alfred Health had adopted at the ‘hot’ hotels were superior to those used throughout the hotel quarantine program for returned travellers,” he wrote.

“The procedures applied to clinical, security and support staff, such as cleaners. The suggestion that workers at the two hotels may have been infected from work contact is inconsistent with the evidence at the inquiry.

“Government spokespeople suggest that the workers con­tract­ed the virus in the community and not at work in the hotels. However, no proof has been provided­ to support this assertion.

“Also, the government was evasive and dilatory in responding to the questions from media outlets. It is possible that the evidence led about the two hotels could be taken into account when the inquiry makes recommend­ations about future quarantine practices.’’

Mr O’Donohue urged the inquiry to “ call for more evidence about practices at the Brady and Grand Chancellor hotels, espec­ially the infection of workers”.

Inquiry chief executive Jo Rainford confirmed later on Wednesday that the inquiry would be making further enquiries regarding the hotels.

The inquiry’s undertaking to investigate comes after Victoria’s Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said on Wednesday he did not regard it as improbable that all nine staff members had likely acquired the virus outside the hotels.

The Department of Justice and Community Safety, which is currently administering the hotel quarantine scheme, told The Australian on Tuesday one of the staff members had likely acquired the virus through an aged-care facil­ity, another through public housing, and a third via a cluster among Victoria Police.

A DJCS spokeswoman said at least seven of the cases had been “assessed as most likely occurring from community transmission”, and said five of the nine had contact with known household cases, while the final case “was considered to be likely community transmission in a hotspot”.