Quarantine Hypocrisy

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“For months we’ve been advocating for a purpose-built regional quarantine facility in Queensland, like Howard Springs [near Darwin], that address the weaknesses we’ve seen in hotel quarantine,” Miles said.“The more facilities, the less risk of leaks in hotel quarantine and the more ability we will have to bring home stranded Australians coming from high-risk countries.

“Australia needs more alternatives to hotel quarantine if we want to eventually return to life as normal.”

The leak from hotel quarantine follows multiple cases where Queensland hospital workers contracted the virus despite not coming into direct contact with Covid-positive patients.

Three separate nurses at the Princess Alexandra hospital contracted Covid earlier this year – including two who caught the virus from a patient with whom they had no contact. The ward was temporarily closed and is no longer used to treat Covid patients.

Similar concerns are now focused on the Prince Charles hospital, where two staff have contracted the virus. One was an unvaccinated woman who worked as a receptionist outside the Covid ward.

The Premier of Queensland has warned that Australia simply cannot contain the new Delta variant of Covid-19 with its current systems.

So does that mean that our hospitals are as leaky as the quarantine hotels?