Beautiful friendship blossoms between elderly couples in Devonport hotel quarantine
A beautiful friendship has blossomed in hotel quarantine, with two elderly couples finding solace in each other while trapped in their tiny rooms. THEIR STORY >>
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A beautiful friendship has blossomed in hotel quarantine, with two elderly couples finding solace in each other while trapped in their tiny Devonport rooms.
Arthur and Jill Orchard were pacing around the hotel’s outdoor exercise area during one of their narrow windows of freedom when they heard a shout from one of the windows.
Brian, who did not wish to have his full name published, recognised their faces from an article published in The Mercury last week detailing their predicament.
Brian said he and his wife felt deeply comforted to know there was another couple who were in the same boat.
“It was good to see how he was going. He’s only a couple of rooms away from us,” Brian said.
“It’s an interesting coincidence. What happened to him was happening to us.”
They exchanged phone numbers and had a good long yarn on the phone, promising to meet up again once they had served their two-week sentence.
In a weird coincidence, it turned out that both couples live near each other in the outside world, and Mr Orchard said he plans to meet up with them for coffee.
Mr Orchard said they felt a sense of solidarity, since all of them were in their 70s and 80s and struggling together in the same boat.
“He needed to talk because he was quite stressed out. It was good to talk with somebody who was going through a similar experience,” Mr Orchard said.
“We’ve had so many calls from friends and relatives this morning calling up to offer support. We’re hearing from friends we haven’t heard from in years.”
Jill Orchard celebrated her birthday on Friday with cake and flowers that had been sent in from friends, family, and wellwishers.
Some of them had also read about her predicament in the paper and had sent cards to cheer them up.
“We’ve had so many calls from friends and relatives this morning to offer support. We’re hearing from friends we haven’t heard from in years,” Mr Orchard said.
“It’s always good when something positive comes out of a negative situation.”
‘We feel like criminals’: Claims of harassment in Tassie quarantine
AN elderly Lindisfarne couple being detained in government quarantine on the North-West Coast against their will say they have been made feel like criminals in their own country.
Arthur and Jill Orchard have made a formal written complaint to police about their treatment on disembarking Spirit of Tasmania I in Devonport this week.
The couple, who drove their motorhome from Queensland through NSW and Victoria to board the Bass Strait ferry in Melbourne, say they were harassed and hurried into signing documents and treated with disrespect.
They and about 30 other ferry passengers were then under police escort, complete with flashing lights, to a secret secure hotel in Devonport for a 14-day quarantine.
“It’s a surreal situation where we feel like criminals in our own country,” Mr Orchard said. “We went five days without exercise, other than pacing around and around in our small room, and with no sun.”
The couple’s Covid-19 tests had both returned negative on Wednesday night and they said they had since been allowed to exercise.
“After showing our QR codes for entry we were asked a few questions about our travel through NSW by a government official. She then went and made a phone call,” he said.
“On her return, we were told that as we had come through NSW, and despite the fact that we had followed Tasmanian Government written advice in doing so, we would have to go into isolation in a government facility for 14 days.
“We asked if we could serve the quarantine at our private home in Hobart. We have done so before in August 2020 without any issues. This was dismissed.
“This implied we cannot be trusted to self isolate in our home in Tasmania.”
Mr Orchard said he had constantly sought and followed government advice on their journey home from Queensland and that their experience crossing state borders was a nightmare like “journeying across fiefdoms with their own rules and regulations”.
Tassie couple stranded on mainland battling Covid red tape
AN elderly couple found themselves stranded on the mainland while trying to navigate the “Kafkaesque” Covid-related bureaucracy needed to get them back home in Hobart.
Neville Banfield and his wife Marion say they spent dozens of hours waiting on hold and trawling through government websites, receiving swathes of contradictory information.
“You’ve got to do everything according to all these rules and regulations, but their own rules are not clearly defined,” Mr Banfield said.
“It all seems a little bit silly. It’s a stupid system.”
After spending “all day” on the phone the 71-year-old was told to get a G2G pass, only to be later informed that they needed a E-Travel pass the day before their ship was due to depart in June.
The Victorian government website crashed while he was seeking clarification, and so he resorted to calling Tasmanian police in a desperate bid to find clarity.
Mr Banfield said the officer told him to get on board the Spirit of Tasmania and seek help from the staff, but upon arrival a crew member tried to turn him around.
Mid-conversation another staff member with “a bit of common sense” came to help out the couple, showing them how to apply for an e-travel pass on their phones.
However the e-travel pass ended up being rejected, since the couple use the same email address – something that the system does not allow for.
“Nowhere in the whole system does it tell you that,” Mr Banfield fumed.
“I really think the government ought to pull their finger out.”
Upon arrival in Devonport there was more confusion among the staff, until one of them realised the couple could instead register their details on a sheet of paper.
After signing the paper sheet, the couple were able to touch down on land, making Mr Banfield wonder why they needed to go through all that “technical rigmarole” in the first place.
Tassie closes its borders to another mainland city
TASMANIA has shut its border to another capital city, with parts of the Northern Territory entering a snap three-day lockdown.
Director of Public Health Mark Veitch said Covid-19 was detected in an NT man who spent time in the community while infectious.
The NT government declared a three-day lockdown for Darwin, Katherine and nearby areas, and the Tasmanian govenrment declared the same areas as being high risk level 2 from 4pm Monday.
Tasmania’s border is currently closed and travel is prohibited from all of New South Wales, Victoria, the Australian Capital Territory, parts of Queensland and multiple locations in Western Australia.
Only South Australia retains a low-risk designation.
The areas of the Northern Territory affected by Monday’s order are Darwin, Palmerston, Katherine (including Tindal), Litchfield, Wagait, Belyuen, Dundee, Bynoe, Charlotte and Cox Peninsula.
Anyone who has been in those areas since August 12 will not be permitted to enter Tasmania, unless approved as an essential traveller. Essential travellers must also quarantine in a suitable premises for 14 days.
And anyone who arrived before 4pm today will be required to stay at home and only leave for food, exercise, medical care, work or study. They must also wear masks.
“Anyone subject to the stay-at-home direction who gets symptoms, even only mild, should stay at home or go home immediately and arrange a COVID-19 test by calling the Public Health Hotline,” Dr Veitch said.
As all of the places in hotel quarantine filled, the government on Monday added another Hobart hotel to the roster.
There are currently 468 people in hotel quarantine including 323 classed as “repatriations, international arrivals, seasonal workers and Antarctic personnel” plus 145 travellers from high or medium-risk areas or premises
A total of 108 rooms at the Travelodge in Hobart will be added to meet the demand, Health Minister Jeremy Rockliff said.
“The most recent series of interstate outbreaks has resulted in a significant and increasing number of domestic travellers requiring quarantine in government-designated hotel accommodation in Tasmania, putting pressure on existing facilities,” Mr Rockliff said.
“Importantly, we will still follow a practice of scheduling arrivals in accordance with room availability so that we can comfortably accommodate people and minimise the risk of an outbreak associated with people arriving from high-risk areas.”
The commissioning of the hotel raises the state’s hotel quarantine capacity from 486 rooms to 594.
No room at the inn: Residents stuck interstate
A TASMANIAN woman is bunkered down in a cold motorhome in NSW watching her money dwindle as she waits to hear when she can come home.
Tania Reynolds is just one of numerous Tasmanians stranded on the mainland and whose applications to return home have been rejected because the state’s hotel quarantine rooms are full.
Ms Reynolds and her little dog Roxy are stuck in a motorhome in Rutherford, Maitland, and is living off what she has left in the bank while waiting desperately to be told she can come home.
“I have applied to come back three times but been rejected because there is no room at the quarantine hotels. I was worried – now I’m starting to panic,” she said.
“I’ve heard things may change by Christmas but I don’t want to be living in my van until then, I just want to return home before I become another Covid statistic.”
A government spokesman said the Delta strain of Covid-19 was significantly more infectious than previous variants and this meant more rapid and stringent border restrictions were needed to protect public safety.
“The most recent series of interstate outbreaks has resulted in a significant and increasing number of domestic travellers requiring quarantine in government-designated hotel accommodation in Tasmania, putting pressure on existing facilities,” he said.
“The government has investigated options to ensure we can continue to effectively manage quarantine requirements. This includes finalising negotiations to activate an additional hotel for domestic quarantine use, which will be put into place very shortly.
“However, hotel quarantine facilities will always be limited and at times of increased demand associated with outbreaks and strict border controls, it will be necessary to schedule arrivals based on available rooms.”
Ms Reynolds has a job to go to when she returns to Tasmania but she has no idea when that might be.
“I’m 66 and sitting here with no job, no pension or any form of income and am not allowed to return to my empty home and quarantine, even though I have a job waiting for me when I return,” she said.
“Yet the Tasmanian government doesn’t see my case as a priority. I don’t want a hotel room, that was the whole point of my request. I have a perfectly good vacant property to self-isolate in.”
“I am very much a loner so would not be getting close to anyone on the way home. I have apps on my phone so I can pay for fuel without the need to enter premises and I mask and glove up when I refuel. I also have a lifetime supply of sanitiser with me.”
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