How did Brisbane's COVID-19 quarantine hotel breach happen?

 

Professor McMillan said he does not feel Australia needs to consider extending quarantine to 21 days

ABC News: Ben Harris

Professor McMillan said the hotel quarantine system has been working "very well" based on the latest data, but there were drawbacks.

"We've seen 350,000 people [go] through the system and less than 20 escapes [of the virus]," he said.

"But that has resulted in two lockdowns in Brisbane and a short lockdown in Western Australia and longer lockdowns in Melbourne."

Professor McMillan said if Australia wanted to bring back international students and expats, larger quarantine facilities similar to those at Howard Springs in the Northern Territory would be required.

"We know that 95 per cent of people will be positive by day 14," he said.

"Given the success of the program in terms of the figures, the cases of people who have become positive after testing negative is quite small, so I don't think we need to go to 21 days [quarantine] at all."

Singapore and Hong Kong recently extended their quarantine periods from 14 days to 21 days.

The Commonwealth has recently approved a purpose-built quarantine facility to be built in Melbourne – in addition to one that has been operating in the Northern Territory.

However, a Queensland proposal has been dismissed by Prime Minister Scott Morrison on multiple occasions.

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 Anti-Vaxers have Rocks Between their Ears

Flight attendant tests positive for COVID-19 in Queensland after DFO visit in Brisbane

A woman has tested positive to COVID-19 in Queensland overnight.

Queensland Health said in a statement that the woman, aged in her 30s, had completed 14 days of hotel quarantine at 9:00am on Saturday.

She had returned negative tests during hotel quarantine.

Shoppers who visited DFO in Brisbane on Saturday are being asked to quarantine and await advice from Queensland Health. ABC News: Jim Malo

A follow-up test on June 19 shortly after leaving hotel quarantine — which was as part of routine aircrew surveillance — came back positive on Saturday evening.

The woman has been out in the community, travelling in a private shuttle bus to accommodation in Hamilton, north of Brisbane yesterday morning, before going to the DFO shopping centre near Brisbane airport and the CBD in the afternoon and a restaurant in the early evening.

Queensland Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young said while the risk is low she was taking a very cautious approach. 

"She came into Brisbane on June 5 on an Emirates flight and we know she had contact with a positive case on that flight who had the Delta variant," Dr Young said.

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Source of Melbourne’s Covid-19 Delta strain outbreak found

Melbourne’s outbreak of the highly-infectious Delta Covid-19 strain has been linked to a returned traveler, though questions still remain.

Victoria’s concerning outbreak of the Delta strain of Covid-19 has been linked to a returned traveler, though questions still remain about how it leaked into the community.

The outbreak, known as the West Melbourne cluster, now has at least 14 confirmed cases linked to it, all of which are the highly-infectious Delta strain.

Acting Premier James Merlino confirmed they have now found a genomic match between this cluster and a returned traveler who entered hotel quarantine on May 8 after arriving from Sri Lanka.

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 Covid is NOT a Joke or Hoax - Millions have Died - Will You Be Next?

Quarantine will be scrapped because Wellcamp Airport lacks air traffic control tower

The lack of a key piece of infrastructure is the reason why the Palaszczuk Government’s second quarantine hub proposal at Toowoomba is likely to be binned.

A Toowoomba Wellcamp quarantine camp that would house returned Australians, Pacific Island workers and international students will likely be scuttled because the nearest airport has no air traffic control tower.

The Courier-Mail understands the Commonwealth received Queensland’s latest detailed proposal on Friday with no warning, and has this raised questions so far around long travel times to Brisbane hospitals, who would own the facility and who would fund a necessary $100 million air traffic control tower.

It’s understood while large aeroplanes are physically capable of landing at Wellcamp Airport, insurance policies will not allow airlines to regularly land at airports with no control tower.

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The ‘Quaranteens’

What life’s like for young Australians who turned 18 in a pandemic.

In the future, we’ll look back at 2020 and remember it all like a blur: the lockdowns, the late-night press conference panics, the toilet paper shortages, the Netflix binging and the sourdough-starting, the anxiety, the loneliness, the grief.

Young Australians who were in their last year of high school will remember it as a generation-defining disaster.

The pandemic hit them in a fragile moment; the transition from school to the rest of their lives, when every decision they made felt life altering.

This period would normally be marked with a series of milestones. Instead, the class of 2020 said anti-climactic goodbyes from their bedrooms over Zoom. Many finished the year feeling trapped, disoriented and lost. 

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 Covid is NOT a Joke or Hoax - Millions have Died - Will You Be Next?

Quarantining travellers moved to second SA medi-hotel after testing delay and fears virus was airborne in corridor

Quarantining travelers have been evacuated after delays in testing a toddler with Covid sparked fears the virus was in hotel corridors. The toddler’s mother has now tested positive.

Delays in testing a toddler and his mother found with Covid-19 has sparked a new exposure alert in an Adelaide medi-hotel amid fears coronavirus may have spread through corridors.

The Advertiser has learnt SA Health staff took 18 minutes to test the two-year-old boy and the woman, aged in her 30s, in the corridor of the Peppers facility on Waymouth St on Thursday.

The delay, which officials said was caused by a range of factors including the child’s distress, language barriers and identity checks, has raised fresh concerns the virus may have leaked out.

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Scott Morrison’s deal for 500-bed quarantine in Victoria

Scott Morrison will commit $200 million to the construction of a 500-bed Victorian quarantine facility at Avalon under a plan close to finalisation ahead of Friday’s national cabinet meeting.

But under a memorandum of understanding sent to the Victorian government, the state would be required to pay for the costs of operating the centre. Construction of the facility would commence by September, with an opening expected in January.

The Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet has been negotiating on key principles for the memorandum with the Victorian Department of Premier and Cabinet, although there remained sticking points on Thursday night.

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Univeristy of Melbourne researchers say there has been one hotel quarantine leak per 204 Covid-19 infected travellers

A concerning statistic has exposed a major issue with coronavirus in Australia that shows just how often one thing is going wrong.

Shocking new analysis has revealed just how far from “fit for purpose” Australia’s hotel quarantine system really is.

Researchers from the University of Melbourne have found that for every 204 Covid-19 infected travellers that have undergone their mandatory quarantine in Australia there has been one leak.

There have been 21 “failures” in Australia’s hotel quarantine system between April 2020 and June 2021, including eight in NSW, five in Victoria, three in Queensland, three in Western Australia, and two in South Australia.

Many have prompted snap, or extended lockdowns in major cities.

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