WA Premier Mark McGowan stands by lockdown call

While WA has now instituted two lockdowns in response to quarantine leaks, data shows that the likes of NSW have suffered similar levels of quarantine-related infections without instituting widespread lockdowns.

West Australian Premier Mark McGowan said on Monday the latest lockdown had been the ‘circuit breaker’ needed to limit community spread. Picture: Colin Murty

West Australian Premier Mark McGowan has defended his government’s decision to force Perth into its second lockdown in three months and again attacked the federal government over its lack of effort on quarantining returning Australians.

A three-day lockdown of two million West Australians around Perth and the southern Peel ­region ended at midnight on Monday after two straight days without any new cases of community COVID transmission.

As with the case in late January, when a quarantine hotel ­security guard contracted the virus, state contact tracers were able to quickly identify and isolate hundreds of close and casual contacts of the three people who were infected in the past week. Most have since returned negative tests, and health authorities are confident that none of the outstanding tests will be positive.

Mr McGowan said the lockdown had been the “circuit breaker” needed to limit community spread.

While Western Australia has called two lockdowns this year in response to quarantine leaks, data from the Health Department and Australian Border Force shows that states such as NSW have suffered similar levels of quarantine-related infections without instituting widespread lockdowns.

From October 27, after Victoria’s second wave of COVID-19 infections, there have been only 13 coronavirus breaches from hotel quarantine across Australia. In the same period 140,355 people were transferred into quarantine.

A state breakdown of Health Department and Australian Border Force data reveals those incursions represented 0.009 per cent of 57,467 people who entered quarantine in NSW, 0.017 per cent of 11,661 in Victoria, 0.01 per cent of 29,015 in Queensland and 0.009 per cent of 21,870 in Western Australia.

 

Since the start of the pandemic in March last year, 271,020 people have entered quarantine, with NSW bearing the heaviest load at 125,856.

But Mr McGowan said his government would continue to take a “very cautious” approach to any similar situations in the future, warning that adopting a different approach was “a recipe for people dying”. “We’ll do what we have to do to keep our state safe and make sure the hotel quarantine system is as safe as possible,” he said.

“It would just be great if the commonwealth, which has responsibility under the commonwealth Constitution, would assist.”

The latest outbreak originated when returned travellers contracted the virus from a COVID-positive patient on the same floor of Perth’s Mercure hotel. The Mercure had previously been identified as a “high risk” quarantine venue due to its ventilation system, mirroring issues identified in the January security guard infection.

State opposition health spokeswoman Libby Mettam said the state government was trying to blame others for its mistakes, and said the lockdowns had cost the state significantly”.

“The government isn’t taking any responsibility for issues and failures which have clearly happened under their watch. They haven’t learned from other states and they haven’t learned from other issues that have been well and truly raised,” she said.

Mr McGowan has repeatedly pointed the finger at the federal government — which has responsibility for quarantine under the constitution — for not meeting its obligations. He has pushed successfully for arrivals from India to be cut and for restrictions on Australians leaving the country.

Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt on Monday said Australia was in a “very strong position” compared to countries.

He said Australia had many rings of containment to deal with the threat of COVID, including border protection, testing, tracing and social distancing.