Victoria reassessing coronavirus hotel quarantine for NSW arrivals in 11th hour backdown

NSW arrivals in Victoria’s hotel quarantine get a letter indicating the Andrews government will consider allowing them to complete quarantine at home.

The Holiday Inn hotel in central Melbourne. Picture: Sarah Matray

NSW arrivals detained in Victoria’s hotel quarantine program have received a late-night letter indicating the Andrews government will consider allowing them to complete their quarantine at home.

The eleventh hour backdown comes after The Australian revealed on Monday that parents have been left indefinitely separated from young children, and detainees, including a Type 1 diabetic, were not given food for more than six hours when Victorian authorities forced them to go into hotel quarantine after the New Year’s Day border closure with NSW.

Those detained include people who had travelled from NSW green zones but visited Sydney within the past 14 days, as well as Sydney residents who were denied the opportunity to fly directly home rather than be forced to go into quarantine.

The letter addressed to detainees who had arrived from NSW.

Shortly after 11pm on Monday, residents of the Holiday Inn quarantine hotel at Melbourne Airport had a letter from the Department of Health and Human Services slid under their doors, outlining a “review” of their detention.

“The Department of Health and Human Services has instituted a process to proactively review the circumstances of people returning from New South Wales to assess whether there may be circumstances whereby quarantine would be more appropriate at a private residence,” the letter reads.

“We recognise that hotel quarantine may be challenging for people with specific needs or medical requirements, for example, and that there may be situations where it is more appropriate for people to quarantine at home while still protecting the Victorian community from the potential public health risks of coronavirus.

“As a person who has recently returned from New South Wales, your case will be reviewed in the coming days. You will understand that there are many cases for DHHS to assess, and therefore they will be looked at in order of arrival from NSW.

“You can expect initial contact to gather information about your situation starting from 5 January 2021.”

The letter asks detainees to provide DHHS with their date of arrival in Victoria, locations they had visited in NSW in the 14 days prior to arrival in Victoria, their home address if they are a Victorian resident, or where they would propose to stay if released from hotel quarantine, and the details of others at the address.

“If you have specific health, age or compassionate grounds which may require your case to be assessed sooner, please contact the Authorised Officers at your hotel so that this information can be provided to DHHS,” the letter reads.

More than 170 NSW returned travellers have been detained in Victorian hotel quarantine since the Andrews government implemented NSW travel restrictions.

The DHHS has also been forced to hire more staff to process applications after almost 2300 people who are stranded in NSW applied to travel back to Victoria on compassionate grounds, with just 175 of those applications processed as of Monday.

Canberra Raiders halfback George Williams tweeted his frustration on Monday after he was detained in hotel quarantine because he had visited the NSW south coast town of Batemans Bay on December 27 and 28, before flying from Canberra to Melbourne.