Finally, one Australian government at least has learned something from its COVID stuff-ups. While Dan Andrews in Victoria continues to lie like a Beijing Party official about the disastrous hotel quarantine scheme, the South Australian government has quickly moved to overhaul the obvious idiocy of the policy. Burned badly by its panicked decision to plunge the entire state into draconian lockdown because of yet another hotel quarantine stuff-up, the Marshall state government is axing private hotel quarantine altogether.
Private security guards are now banned and hotels will no longer be used for quarantine in a complete reversal of the management of South Australia’s COVID quarantine system following an infection bungle.
Instead, all positive COVID-19 cases will be moved out of medi-hotels to a new, dedicated facility staffed solely by SA Police and Protective Services workers.
Attention, Jacinda Ardern?
Premier Steven Marshall announced the overhaul on Wednesday after it emerged that an expatriate couple who returned to SA and were believed to have caught the virus overseas were subsequently found to be part of the Parafield cluster, which forced last week’s snap lockdown.
That discovery means the couple are likely to have caught the virus while housed at the Peppers Hotel, where people who are part of the Parafield cluster had been working as cleaners and kitchen hands, suggesting a possible breakdown in safety within the hotel.
As I recently wrote about South Australia’s outbreak, “Does it strike anyone else as grossly negligent that those working in close contact with quarantinees are not more thoroughly vetted and monitored? Does anyone else think that having guards working quarantine and then clocking off to mingle in the community is a disaster waiting to happen?“
The announcement by Premier Marshall is a major shift against his former reluctance to manage quarantine using only police and protective services employees.
He has said previously that it would be logistically impossible to manage quarantine properly using police alone and that extra workers were required to bolster numbers.
He has also argued that it was unfair to expect private workers not to hold second jobs, but had written to the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee (AHPPC) seeking clarification on safety concerns.
But in light of the bungled infection cases at the Peppers Hotel, and with the Opposition demanding medi-hotels be closed and even that old detention centres be used instead, Mr Marshall opted for a complete overhaul.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/coronavirus-australia-private-security-hotels-axed-in-south-australia-quarantine-overhaul/news-story/895df312a3a79b86685a590e3fc7035b
Meanwhile, New Zealand’s supposed COVID Queen persists in using both hotel-based quarantine and private security.
SA premier Steven Marshall has banned private guards and hotel quarantine. The BFD. Photoshop by Lushington Brady.
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