WA to axe one-third of its quarantine hotels

WA Premier Mark McGowan says three hotels at high risk of facilitating the spread of the virus between rooms will no longer be used.

WA Premier Mark McGowan. Picture: Getty

Western Australia will stop using three of its nine COVID quarantine hotels in the next few weeks in response to ventilation issues that have sparked two outbreaks in recent months.

WA Premier Mark McGowan on Wednesday said the state would stop using the Four Points and Mercure Hotels — which were the origin of the state’s January and April infections respectively – by next month and start using the Novotel Langley only to quarantine seasonal workers from Tonga and Vanuatu, where no cases of COVID have been recorded.

The three hotels were identified in February as being at high risk of facilitating the spread of the virus between rooms given the nature of their ventilation systems.

Returned travellers had continued to be quarantined in the hotels over the subsequent months, with the government taking precautions such as additional PPE and the installation of portable air filters, but they will now stop being used in the wake of the latest incident.

WA has temporarily halved its intake of returned overseas travellers to 512 per week in the wake of the latest outbreak, but Mr McGowan has said the reduced intake will become permanent if the Commonwealth does not start taking additional responsibility for quarantine.

“Whilst they are very secure, obviously they’re not perfect and the ventilation systems there we can’t make perfect,” he said.

“We will move out of those, and that will result in a reduction in the number of people we can take into Western Australia, we will work out what that is and how many we can take.”

The news came as WA recorded another day without any cases of community spread.

Four new cases have been recorded in WA’s hotel quarantine.

Mr McGowan said WA had been taking more returned overseas travellers than any other state on a per capita basis.

“The Prime Minister was right yesterday when he said our hotel quarantine system has been 99.9 per cent secure,” Mr McGowan said.

“The problem with that 99.9 per cent is that the consequences can be dire. That’s why we are going to do everything we can to ensure we are as secure as possible in Western Australia.”