Victoria's hotel quarantine program was set up in 48 hours and without "precise lines of responsibility, control, supervision and management", the inquiry into the scheme has heard.
Hearings at the hotel quarantine inquiry resumed on Monday, with Doherty Institute genomics expert Professor Benjamin Howden due to present data showing the link between Melbourne’s quarantine hotel outbreaks and the second surge of the coronavirus.
Counsel assisting the inquiry, Tony Neal, QC, said the quarantine program, which has been blamed for Victoria's deadly second wave of infections, was initially set up in 48 hours and represented a "very considerable logistical effort".
He said it was not clear who was in command of the program, dubbed Operation Soteria after the Greek goddess of rescue and safety.
"Decisions were made very quickly and in the absence, it seems, of precise lines of responsibility, control, supervision and management," he said.
"Given the complex health environment in which people were being mandatorily detained, how was the initial set-up bedded down? What time was taken to review the appropriateness of hotel arrangements and security arrangements in the weeks following its inception?
The Rydges on Swanston hotel was the source of a major outbreak linked to Victoria's second surge of coronavirus.Credit:Getty Images
"From the beginning, it seems there were multiple and potentially overlapping areas of responsibility between the departments. Evidence will be called in due course about the roles that some departments envisaged playing … and how they differed from the roles that they actually played as the program commenced."
The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald revealed last week that patient zero in the surge now plaguing the state was not a badly behaved security guard but a night duty manager at the Rydges hotel on Swanston Street, one of the busiest quarantine hotels, dubbed the "red hotel".
The $3 million inquiry led by former judge Jennifer Coate is investigating how the hotel quarantine program was established and operated, particularly outbreaks among staff and private security guards at the Rydges hotel and Stamford Plaza, which have been linked to a significant proportion, if not all, of Victoria's second-surge infections.
Mr Neal said the program did not initially include an active front-line role for the ADF or Victoria Police. "Why that is so, is an issue for this inquiry," he said.
He said the inquiry would focus on how private security guards at quarantine hotels were managed by the Victorian government.
"How indeed were they trained, resourced and supervised? Did they have access to personal protective equipment and infection control measures, how were they trained, and did they effectively use that equipment?" he said.
Security guards have previously told The Age and the Herald they were provided with one pair of gloves and one mask for each 12-hour shift and started work with very little or no training.
Infectious diseases expert Professor Lindsay Grayson, the first witness to give evidence at the inquiry, said large-scale quarantine was not part of Australia's pandemic plans.
"It’s always referred to without there being a clear outline of what will happen with quarantine of 10 people versus 10,000 people … And the principles of quarantine are well known, but what you're talking about is scale, and that’s not something that’s been a dominant feature of the plans."
Professor Grayson, the director of infectious diseases and microbiology at Austin Health and director of Hand Hygiene Australia, said it was unlikely COVID-19 could be transmitted via airconditioners. Direct contact with confirmed cases just before or at the start of their symptoms was the highest risk, he said.
He said any use of personal protective equipment without proper training put people at risk. "Just to have PPE but to do it wrongly is a risk … It’s actually quite a complicated thing, even as an infectious disease physician, to remember how to do it accurately," he said.
Mr Neal said it should be noted that thousands of workers at Victoria’s quarantine hotels did not become infected with COVID-19, despite crucial failures at Rydges on Swanston and Stamford Plaza.
Tony Neal, QC, speaking at the Victorian hotel quarantine inquiry via video link on Monday.
He said that meant the program ultimately failed.
"If the intent of the program was to prevent travellers from infecting other people with COVID-19, then to that extent it fell short of its goal," Mr Neal said.
He noted it should have been a "quarantine program, rather than an accommodation program".
Hotel inquiry legal line-up
- Tony Neal, QC, the lead lawyer acting for the inquiry, also known as the counsel assisting
- Claire Harris, QC, for the Department of Health and Human Services
- Helen Tiplady, representing the Department of Justice and Community Safety
- Richard Attiwill, QC, representing the Department of Premier and Cabinet
- Andrew Woods, representing Rydges Hotels Limited
- Stephen Palmer, representing the Melbourne Hotel Group
- Julie Condon, QC, representing the Department of Jobs, Precincts and Regions
- Arthur Moses, SC, representing Unified Security
COVID-19 has so far killed 334 people in Victoria and on Monday the state announced 282 new cases and 25 deaths – a record high number of fatalities for a single day.
A public accounts and estimates committee hearing was told last week that Emergency Management Commissioner Andrew Crisp signed off on the hotel quarantine plans, under the recommendation of the scheme's governance group. The group was made up of bureaucrats from the Department of Health and Human Services; Department of Jobs, Regions and Precincts; Victoria Police; Department of Transport; and Department of Premier and Cabinet.
Mr Neal confirmed government ministers would be called to give evidence in the inquiry before it delivered its findings on November 6.
The hearings are expected to run for all of Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday this week.
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Tammy Mills is the legal affairs reporter for The Age.
Michael is a state political reporter for The Age.
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2020-08-17 01:47:00Z
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