Originally Posted by
DirectAnywhere
Declare a state of emergency, requisition all the manpower, equipment, materials and temporary structures you can find. Get army engineers to manage the immediate construction of quarantine facilities on federally owned land near a major capital city. I hate the use of this term, but we should be on a "war-like" footing when it comes to the establishment of remote quarantine.
All returning travellers either go there or similar "Howard Springs-style" facilities.
The only people in "hotel" quarantine are international flight crew. No-one deals with them in any way who is not vaccinated and subject to daily PCR testing. Requisition airport hotels within walking distance of the terminal where they're available. No need for drivers, no public contact, nothing.
Frankly, given our recent experiences, the next "leak" is already brewing in a hotel somewhere. We are suffering a breach roughly every 7-10 days. This cannot go on.
It's going to be expensive, but not as expensive as the current disaster. I'll happily pay a temporary levy for 12 months as I need to be working to pay such a levy, something that is looking increasingly unlikely, again.
Why would Australia do any of that? The economic numbers are great!
The lesson to be learnt from the pandemic is that Australia should continue to randomly lock down capital cities, randomly close interstate borders and keep the international borders closed to travellers. That, and continue to rack up trillions in debt. It's good for the economy.
(Methinks Australia is nearing the end of the beginning of the fight against this pandemic. The beginning will have ended once the amateur hour quarantine arrangements have ended - something that should have happened over a year ago.)