Queensland’s hotel quarantine failure exposes nation to potential Delta strain Covid-19 catastrophe

A failure within Queensland’s hotel quarantine system has exposed the country to a potential catastrophic outbreak of the Delta strain of Covid-19 after a mine worker was made to quarantine among international arrivals.

A failure within Queensland’s hotel quarantine system has exposed the country to a potential catastrophic outbreak of the Delta strain of Covid-19 after a mine worker was made to quarantine among international arrivals.

Contact tracers across multiple states and territories are now scrambling to locate 900 workers who had since left the site while working with the infectious miner and on to Brisbane, Perth, Alice Springs, and Darwin.

A total of 170 of those workers are in Queensland, with one woman on the Sunshine Coast confirmed as a case late on Sunday after she had spent about a day in the community.

At least 100 people are considered “very close contacts” of the infected miner.

Four new cases have already emerged, plunging the Northern Territory into its first snap lockdown and causing the first Covid-19 scare in NSW’s Hunter Valley since August last year.

South Australian authorities are also on high alert fearing spread from the mine to the highly vulnerable Aboriginal community on the border known as the APY lands.

The mine worker, from coronavirus-free Bendigo, flew into Brisbane on June 17 and was forced to quarantine on the fifth floor of the Novotel Brisbane Airport hotel until his charter flight to the mine site 540km from Alice Springs the next day.

Ambulance and police in PPE and masks at the Novotel Brisbane Airport. Picture: Liam Kidston

It has since been confirmed that Queensland does not assign hotels based on where people have come from, but rather on room availability and “specific traveller needs”.

Western Australia’s chief health officer Dr Andy Robertson said in his state domestic people are not “generally” put into quarantine among international travellers so they don’t “inadvertently get people cross infected”.

It was during this nine hour stay in hotel quarantine, on the same floor as international travellers, when the man caught Covid-19, prompting fears it is more than likely the highly infectious Delta strain of the virus.

The man had stayed on the same floor where transmission of the Delta variant had previously occurred between two rooms of international travellers, though chief health officer Dr Jeanette Young said it was likely a separate leak that infected the miner.

Dr Young confirmed it was “normal” for authorities to force people into quarantine even though they are transiting through the state.

It has been confirmed that another man living on the same floor had tested positive for Covid-19 after the miner had left, though what strain he had was not disclosed.

Queensland Health are now reviewing CCTV footage and assessing “environmental and engineering issues” such as airconditioning, to figure out how the miner became infected.

The department defended Queensland’s quarantine system, saying it had helped keep the state safe.

“As NSW has seen, the Delta variant presents significant challenges to hotel quarantine. We know we are working with the strongest possible quarantine system available to us at this point in time,” a spokesman said.

Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt said it was up to Queensland Health to explain the “reasoning and rationale” behind putting a domestic traveller into quarantine in proximity to higher risk international arrivals.

He said more cases were expected.

“We need to be honest and aware of that. But can we manage it? Yes,” Mr Hunt said.

At any one time the mine has up to 1000 workers on site, which has shared accommodation and mess halls.

A total of 754 people at the mine were immediately put into isolation.

However 900 people who were at the mine while the man was infectious had already left this site, with flight manifests sent to all states and territories impacted.

A total of 244 of those people remained in the Northern Territory, with one man already testing positive to Covid-19.

Two others who remained on the mine site had also tested positive.

Darwin, Palmerston, and the Litchfield areas have been plunged into a 48-hour lockdown as NT authorities escalate their Covid-19 response in light of the territory’s highly vulnerable population.

It has been confirmed that one worker who went home to the Hunter Valley in NSW has also tested positive for Covid-19.

Hundreds more have travelled on to other parts of the country, including Perth and Brisbane.

Originally published as Queensland’s hotel quarantine failure exposes nation to potential Delta strain Covid-19 catastrophe