In the eyes of the world, Australia’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic has been, for the most part, a success story.
Compared to other Western nations – the United Kingdom and the United States chief among them – our conduct and swift uptake of restrictions has been lauded by leaders, experts and media around the globe.
But on home soil, the continued infections of our hotel quarantine workers while at work – no matter how many times the system is tweaked – has become a thorn in our nation’s side, with experts once again calling to remove the facilities from Australian cities once and for all.
Over the weekend, a Victorian woman became the second quarantine worker in less than a week to test positive to COVID-19.
With eight cases now linked to the Holiday Inn at Melbourne Airport, at least one state is likely to shut its border and Premier Daniel Andrews has called on residents to “redouble our efforts”.
But Adrian Esterman, Professor of Biostatistics and Epidemiology at the University of South Australia, argues the new infections also “raise a question many have been asking for months”.
“Why is hotel quarantine situated in big cities, often in the CBD itself?” he wrote for The Conversation.
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He added that “it’s well and truly time to move quarantine to remote locations, to reduce the risk of transmission into dense urban areas”.
When National Cabinet first agreed to implement the hotel quarantine system on March 27 last year, “Australia was in a desperate hurry to find some way of quarantining returning Australians, and hotels were seen as a good solution to the problem”, Prof Esterman wrote.
“But there are two major problems with this approach. The first is that hotels are not built for quarantine. They’re not designed to limit the spread of infectious diseases. Many do not have adequate ventilation.
“The virus has escaped from quarantine in Sydney, Adelaide, Brisbane, Perth and Melbourne. The spread of aerosols – tiny viral particles that remain suspended in the air – has been implicated in many of these breaches.”
The second problem, he said, “is that most states are using hotels in the centre of their major cities”.
“This means if the virus does escape, via an infected worker or otherwise, the potential for significant spread is higher because of the densely populated urban setting.”
Prof Esterman, along with Professor of Epidemiology at UNSW Mary-Louise McLaws, told news.com.au late last year these quarantine issues could have been stopped by sending our arrivals to remote locations.
The system we have now, Prof McLaws said, makes “little sense” and should only have been a temporary solution.
“Placing quarantining of high numbers of cases in highly populated cities places too great a risk for seeding the community with infection through the staff,” she said.
“It would be like placing a COVID ward in the CBD in an office building without the required infection prevention design of that building and this ‘ward’ being staffed by non-health workers. It makes little sense outside the original rapid response solution.”
West Australian Premier Mark McGowan and his Queensland counterpart, Annastacia Palaszczuk, have also endorsed the exploration of remote locations as quarantine facilities.
While Ms Palaszczuk was slammed for proposing that isolated mining camps be used for returned travellers, Melbourne University epidemiologist Professor Tony Blakely told news.com.au that her idea had merit.
“They need to be building more Howard Springs-like facilities,” he said last Thursday. “There are not been any leakage of the virus from these facilities as far as I’m aware.”
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Prof Blakely believes that all hotels being used for quarantine should be assessed by air ventilation experts to ensure there is as much natural air flow as possible.
Recent coronavirus cases linked to hotel quarantine have also provided lessons.
Western Australia recently revealed that a security guard appeared to have caught the disease despite being stationed at least two doors away from the room where a positive case was staying.
The room was visited seven times in one day, including for food and flower deliveries, and authorities now believe airflow may have led to the guard being infected.
“Putting a security guard in a corridor (to ensure no one left their room) seems like a good idea,” Prof Blakely said.
But he said the incident had shown it was safer to rely on CCTV footage rather than physical security guards.
Prof Blakely also believes anyone who works in a quarantine facility should be required to wear a mask as they were still at risk of aerosol transmission.
The WA security guard had not been wearing a mask as they did not approach the door of the room and this was consistent with health directions at the time. Authorities have now changed the rules so all guards are required to wear masks.
It is also necessary for N95 masks to be worn, Prof Blakely said, as it was possible for the virus to sneak through the edges of other masks.
– with Ben Graham
https://news.google.com/__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?oc=5
2021-02-10 13:55:27Z
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