The National Guidelines on Hotel Quarantine were only updated on Thursday - 10/12.
"Hotel quarantine workers
Jurisdictions are recommended to conduct regular testing of staff who work in COVID-19 quarantine and isolation settings who are at risk of exposure to COVID-19. Workers who are at higher risk are recommended to be tested at least every 7 days. The risk of exposure should be determined by those managing the quarantine/isolation setting (e.g. a Public Health Unit).
Routine testing should complement but not replace existing infection prevention and control activities as well as occupational health and safety requirements intended to protect workers, ensure the safety of quarantine facilities and prevent spread of infection from quarantine and isolation settings to the wider community.
Jurisdictions may also determine appropriate methods for routine testing, which may include alternative testing methods (e.g. saliva).
Please see AHPPC statement on COVID-19: Routine Testing of Hotel Quarantine Workers."
The National guidelines can be downloaded from this page.
At the end of August there was a Review of Hotel Quarantine.It can be accessed from here -
A review of quarantine systems and processes in all States and Territories except Victoria.
www.health.gov.au
Not all the recommendations have been followed.
Recommendations
1. States and Territories should embed end-to-end assurance mechanisms and look to continuously improve hotel quarantine to ensure that it is delivered consistent with good practice.
2. Information on the quarantine system should be easy to access by travelers in order to ensure their understanding of quarantine and to better psychologically prepare them for the experience. This should be provided across relevant Commonwealth/State and Territory websites.
3. People in quarantine should have access to timely decision making, review processes and complaints mechanisms, including pathways for escalation.
4. Options for new models of quarantine should be developed for consideration by National Cabinet including a risk assessment of these options and an analysis of traveler suitability.
5. National Cabinet should consider exempting low risk cohorts, such as travelers from New Zealand, from mandatory quarantine.
6. The Australian Government should consider the establishment a national facility for quarantine to be used for emergency situations, emergency evacuations or urgent scalability.
Especially the last one which was fleshed out in the report.
A national quarantine facility in reserve
With a large number of Australian citizens and permanent residents currently offshore, the need to significantly increase arrival numbers, including for business and agricultural purposes, and the changeability of the COVID-19 situation, consideration should also be given to the establishment and maintenance of a national facility in reserve to facilitate large scale evacuations from international ports, if or when required.
Should there be a need to scale up services significantly and at short notice as the Northern Hemisphere winter descends and people continue to arrive into Australia from this region who require hotel quarantine, it would be beneficial to consider national facility for emergency or surge situations. Changeability or localised outbreaks may also necessitate large scale evacuations from particular regions.
The Australian Government has the capability to declare a human health response zone, as seen with evacuations of early quarantine cohorts to national facilities or State/Territory facilities gazetted for this purpose, including the Learmonth RAAF base or immigration detention facilities, and the Northern Territory’s Howard Springs facility.
The Howard Springs facility has the capacity to house some 3,000 people and is well suited to the provision of this reserve capacity.
www.abc.net.au
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