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SYDNEY – Australia is considering controversial plans to set up isolated rural quarantine camps for people entering from abroad as the country tries to close the final gap in its efforts to combat Covid-19.
The proposal to move quarantine facilities away from hotels in dense urban centers was first raised by the state of Queensland, which imposed a three-day lockdown in Brisbane, after a cleaner at a hotel quarantined in the Capital will be infected with the contagious British strain of the virus.
Following the shutdown, the state’s prime minister, Annastacia Palaszczuk, proposed setting up quarantine accommodations in mining camps in regional centers such as Toowoomba and Gladstone.
But the plan angered some city dwellers, who said they did not want to be forced to deal with an influx of potentially infectious visitors.
Robbie Katter, an outspoken parliamentarian from the state of Queensland, said rural areas often have inferior health services, but accept this as the price of living away from big cities. He said remote camps should only be established if they are at least 50-100km from a major city.
“People will often live in a remote area because they are protected from things like this virus, and they will tolerate not having a doctor or vital public services,” he told NCA NewsWire.
“These people endured a lot, living in a remote area, having that barrier away from the negative influence of the cities.”
Other states, such as Western Australia, have also said remote installations should be considered.
The federal government was initially skeptical of the plan, saying hotels in the city were easily closed and allowed international arrivals to be close to medical services and testing facilities.
Following protests from local communities in Queensland, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he believed it was unfair to “dump” the Covid-19 problem in remote areas, but had an open mind about remote facilities.
The largest state, New South Wales, has roundly rejected the measure, saying it receives more international arrivals than other states and that remote quarantine was not logistically feasible.
Australia is largely free of Covid-19, but has suffered from repeated outbreaks of cases that have leaked out of quarantine facilities. On Wednesday (February 10), Australia had 11 new cases, including two locally transmitted, which are part of a group linked to a Melbourne hotel.
Australia has banned all international arrivals except for Australian citizens and residents and their families, and New Zealand travelers. Around 38,000 Australians abroad are still waiting to go home, but the list continues to grow. Many are in badly affected parts of the world.
But authorities have fought to get Australians back quickly while avoiding breaches at quarantine facilities.
Several public health experts have urged states to transfer quarantine facilities to remote and sparsely populated areas, but say the homes should be close to an airport and allow access to medical facilities and expert staff.
Professor Adrian Esterman, a public health and biostatistics expert at the University of South Australia, said that installing rural facilities would be expensive, but that the expense should be measured against the costs of imposing more closures in capitals.
“It is very difficult to make a quarantine station 100% leak free,” he wrote on The Conversation website this week. “But if we move quarantine facilities out of cities to isolated locations, any leak is much less likely to cause major transmission events.”
Professor Tony Blakely, an epidemiologist at the University of Melbourne, said remote facilities should be used “as much as we can” to avoid accommodating all arrivals in hotels in the city center.
“We also have to be realistic because we are not suddenly going to set up lots of rural places and be able to send everyone there,” he told 3AW Radio.
“What we do want to do is send people who come from the countries with the highest virus burden, so that they are in the best possible places.”
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