Top quarantine tips from a 14-day hotel room survivor
Australians don’t know how lucky we’ve got it with free quarantine … and the food’s not bad either.
It is 11.31am on day 10 when the coronavirus testers arrive at my quarantine hotel room in Sydney.
Knock, knock, knock.
“Is it OK if we do a COVID swab?” asks one of the two nurses dressed head to toe in medical protective gear.
“Of course,” I whimper.
Perhaps I’ve changed since I moved to Beijing in early January, but it never occurred to me to say no.
It is not until a day later — my 11th in room 1019 of the TraveLodge on Wentworth Avenue, a branch of Australia’s quarantine operation — that I’m stunned to learn 30 per cent of my fellow taxpayer-funded quarantiners in Victoria have said “Nah, no thanks” to being tested for the highly infectious coronavirus after flying into Australia during a pandemic.
“Just put your back on the door, here. Tilt your head. Open wide. Say Ahhh!” she says.
The unforgettable experience is all done in one minute and 50 seconds.
Three days later, a doctor and nurse, accompanied by two friendly army officers, deliver good news. “The result returned NOT DETECTED,” reads the form they hand over.
They also take my temperature (“36.5”, good), give me a blue wristband (it reads: “MONDAY: COVID-19 NSW”) and tell me I am allowed to check out at midnight, which is exactly what I will be doing.
Clean, tasty and free
That the testing of guests has been non-compulsory is unbelievable to someone arriving from China, where COVID-19 policies are not negotiable.
Still, there is a lot to like about hotel quarantine in Australia. Unlike in other countries — say in China, where guests are charged about $100 a night — the more than 65,000 people who have gone through the 14-day process in Australia, including the Victorian test-dodgers, have had their bill picked up by the taxpayer. Thank you.
The room is small, the window doesn’t open and the view of the Corporate Fight Gym is not Sydney’s best. But it is clean. And, unlike in some of the world’s other quarantine schemes, no resident in Australia has died after their hotel collapsed on them.
The three meals a day — all, thank you again, paid by the taxpayer — are surprisingly good.
The Vietnamese chicken noodle bowl, pumpkin and ricotta cannelloni and Cantonese barbecue pork fried rice are standouts.
From arrival to checkout, multiple layers of the Australian security state watch over me and my fellow 74 passengers who landed in Sydney on the weekly China Eastern flight from Shanghai.
At the airport, uniformed army and navy personnel load our luggage into the Murrays bus that takes us to the hotel.
Four armed plain-clothed police and a masked army officer are waiting out the front of the TraveLodge as the bus pulls in. A NSW police officer boards the bus to explain what happens next.
“OK, you’re going to be quarantined here for two weeks. You’re not going to be able to leave your hotel room. There are fines if you do. All right?” he says.
Any dietary problems, tell the hotel staff. Any health problems, tell the hotel staff.
“You’ll be checked around day 10 for corona,” he says. “Any questions?” The bus is quieter than the almost empty Shanghai Pudong International Airport we flew out of 14 hours before.
‘Good luck’
Among us is Oscar, 35, an Australian citizen who has been living in China on a visa that has to be reset every 90 days by leaving the Chinese mainland.
A trip to Hong Kong normally does the job, but coronavirus travel restrictions have pushed the UTS master of finance back to Australia.
He has left his wife and eight-year-old daughter in Shanghai, and on his release from the TraveLodge he will move into his parents’ place in St Ives, on Sydney’s north shore. “I hope it will only be three months,” he says.
Also waiting to be checked in is Gary Polglaze, a business administrator at Dulwich College, a British international school in Shanghai. He has a happier reason to return to Australia.
“My son is getting married,” he says, beaming.
After five months apart, Gary is now only 14 days away from seeing his wife. Me too. My wife, Rosaline, flew back on January 29. We are almost together again now.
One by one we disembark, give details and check in. There are no keys for guests in hotel quarantine. “We have a master key,” a uniformed army officer explains before escorting me to the elevator.
It opens on level 10 where army officer Gonzales is waiting for me. He says hello, takes me to room 1019, wishes me “Good luck” and shuts the door.
I’m not alone for too long. An hour later, a member of the nursing team phones to check in. “We’ll be calling every day to see how you are,” says Helen.
On the second day, Bellina, a clinical psychologist at Healthcare Australia, calls to ask how I’m settling in. “Any mental health concerns?” she asks.
On day seven, Mary from the Red Cross calls. “We’re just touching base with people in quarantine,” she says.
Bless the lot of them.
Late in my second week, a nurse calls after I have read about an outbreak of coronavirus cases linked to a quarantine hotel in Melbourne. What happened?
The nurse tells me he heard the guests in Melbourne were taken outside for some fresh air. He says one of the accompanying security guards later became infected.
My wife and I decide not to visit Melbourne for a bit.
Tips from a veteran
In case it helps, here is some advice for future quarantiners.
If possible, pack a speaker that hooks up to a smartphone (I used a blue UE Boom 3 — other colours also work well).
Fill your little room with music while you exercise (I recommend Jay-Z and the “Produced by Timbaland” playlist on Spotify), with classical music while you work (I like WQXR) and whatever podcasters you like to keep company with (I’m a fan of the Sinica Podcast, and Allan Gyngell and Darren Lim’s “Australia in the world” — but you’ll probably have your own favourites).
Schedule exercise. I found running on the spot from 4pm followed by “Yoga With Adriene” on YouTube (with my wife, beamed in over FaceTime) from 5pm a good daily combination. But, again, whatever does the job.
While the food was better than I expected, strategic top-ups go a long way. I found breakfast a bit patchy (Coco Pops, one day, Cornflakes the next) and the little coffee sachets were a bit depressing.
Your mornings will be much improved with a coffee plunger, some ground beans (my friend Maddy delivered some sensational stuff from Kenya) and a pack of muesli.
If you are that way inclined, also get your friend to deliver some wine and beer (spirits are banned from hotel quarantine, probably for good reason).
There is a daily limit on alcohol delivered to your room: a six-pack of beer or a bottle of wine.
But at least at the TraveLodge, you can store supplies downstairs in your own personal cellar.
Most important of all, let them stick the thing up your nose.
It’s the decent thing to do.
More quarantine tips in Life: The 2020 Edition.
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