Victoria races village-style quarantine facility

Victoria will race to build a village-style quarantine facility for ­returned travellers and flight crew close to an international airport.

A traveller wearing a bag over their head arrives at a hotel in Albert Park, Melbourne, after being evacuated from the Holiday Inn in the CBD. Picture Ian Currie

Victoria will race to build a village-style quarantine facility for ­returned travellers and flight crew close to an international airport as the third lockdown edges closer to ending on Wednesday night.

While Scott Morrison lauded the relative success of the NSW-style hotel quarantine system, he said he would discuss the plan for special facilities outside the CBD with the ­Andrews government.

Victorian Premier Daniel ­Andrews on Tuesday pledged to build a facility based broadly on the Howard Springs centre in the Northern Territory either at Avalon or Melbourne airport, with the possibility of a separate facility for flight crew.

The momentum for quarantine away from city hotels grew on Tuesday as South Australian rich lister Sam Shahin offered the Marshall government space at his country car-racing track for a COVID-19 facility.

This would be along similar lines to facilities mooted for Lindsay Fox’s Avalon Airport and by Queensland businessman John Wagner at Toowoomba, as the private sector increasingly seeks to curb the impact of the corona­virus on the economy.

“It is more than just scoping it, we are going to get on and build a facility,” Mr Andrews said.

Victorian Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton added: “I think it’s a brilliant idea.”

The government was on the back foot on Tuesday when a resident of a so-called hot hotel in Melbourne’s CBD emerged from the building wearing a garbage bag over their head. A water leak in the hotel forced the facility to be evacuated, with the government saying the infected person used the garbage bag because they wanted to avoid publicity. But the incident highlighted yet another problem in hotel quarantine.

The Victorian government says the hotel used the garbage bag because they wanted to avoid publicity. Picture: David Crosling

Mr Andrews spoke about plans for a new facility after reports in The Australian ­detailed momentum for special centres at Avalon Airport, about 55km southwest of Melbourne, and Toowoomba, 125km west of Brisbane.

While Mr Andrews refused to say whether Victoria’s lockdown would end at midnight on Wednesday, he indicated he was likely to lift restrictions should the ­Holiday Inn cluster remain under control. The cluster reached 19 cases on Tuesday but has not extended ­beyond people who worked or stayed at the Holiday Inn and their close contacts.

“You’d always prefer no new cases, but it is fair to say that with just two contained additional community cases today, this strategy is working,” Mr Andrews said. “We are well-placed to be able to make changes tomorrow night.’’

He said new strains of the virus meant Avalon and Melbourne airports were being examined for accommodation hubs.

They would be single-storey, with room for families, and with windows that could be opened and surfaces that could easily be cleaned. There would be separate staff facilities. “It’s a matter of how big it is,” Mr Andrews said of the proposed development. “It is not a small undertaking.”

The Prime Minister said that while NSW had implemented a successful hotel quarantine operation with significantly more returnees, he would talk to Mr Andrews.

“They’ve, of course, had a pretty significant impact, particularly last year,” Mr Morrison said.

“But it is also true that in seven other states and territories they’ve had … great success in managing that ­inflow and also preventing … breaches,” he said.

But where breaches occur, their systems have been very strong, whether that’s in Queensland or Western Australia, of course NSW, or other places.

“But we’ll work with them as we ­always have.”

Returned travellers are led from the Holiday Inn in Melbourne after water damage forced its closure on Tuesday. Picture: David Crosling

Mr Andrews cautioned he would not be able to make the call on lifting the latest lockdown until the latest data was received on Wednesday. Tuesday’s two newest cases were among nine people, including a Holiday Inn food and beverage attendant, who have tested positive since attending a private gathering in Coburg, in Melbourne’s north, on February 6.

“I’m not in a position to definitively commit to that (lifting the lockdown) because these next 24 hours will, of course, be crucial,” Mr Andrews said.

“We are very well-placed, but we won’t know and we won’t be able to make a final call on that until some time tomorrow, and, as we’ve done on numerous occasions, we will wait as long as we can, still trying to give people as much notice as possible.’’

Meanwhile the South Australian government reacted tepidly to the offer by Mr Shahin, the head of Peregrine Corporation, to use part of his Tailem Bend motor racing facility as a COVID-19 site.

While SA Health has been reluctant to back the plan, Mr Shahin told The Australian he was prepared to help the community deal with the crisis. “It just needs people to get their heads around the problem,” he said.