Highlights
- Victoria calls in ADF to assist with hotel quarantine monitoring
- Over 18,000 overseas travellers have been quarantined at hotels in Victoria
- A large number of cases have been associated with return travellers from the Indian subcontinent
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews announced his state government has requested increased support from the country’s defence forces to support its COVID-19 response.
The request comes after concerns were raised about the state’s health protocols at hotels where over 18,000 returned travellers were sent into 14-day quarantine since the policy was implemented two and a half months ago.
“Firstly, medical teams to support with those big, really big testing sites. Some other transportation support, particularly getting people from the airport to the hotel quarantine. And also, some of the sort of administrative and logistical support that we see each and every fire season,” Mr Andrews said during a press conference.
Overseas arrivals have emerged as a major concern for Victorian health authorities in the past few days after the state had to tackle two separate coronavirus clusters linked to quarantine hotels, besides dealing with individual cases, seven of which were recorded overnight.
People queue up for COVID-19 testing at a pop-up testing site in Chadstone, Melbourne, Thursday, June 25, 2020. Source: AAP
India, Bangladesh, Pakistan - exponential growth in cases
On the source of these infections, state health minister Jenny Mikakos had earlier pointed out that many of these returned travellers were from the Indian subcontinent, which she said was in turn responsible for the state’s rising number of cases.
“Countries like India, Bangladesh and Pakistan are experiencing exponential growth in confirmed cases at the moment, and obviously that's impacting on the increase on our numbers who are in hotel quarantine,” she said.
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Recently arrived overseas travellers get off their bus and wait to check in at the Crown Promenade Hotel in Melbourne, Sunday, March 29, 2020. Source: AAP
And with most emergency repatriation flights carrying Australian citizens, residents and exempt visa holders landing in Melbourne and Sydney, this means that Victoria and New South Wales have been bearing the brunt of the majority of imported infections.
At least 7200 people have returned to six Australian cities from India alone on 33 repatriation and chartered flights, as of June 21.
Earlier this week, the Victorian government had reportedly approached the federal government about sending repatriation flights away from Melbourne - a plan that was later abandoned.
Explaining his stand, Mr Andrews said that while the load has been spread between the two states, Melbourne has had to deal with some “really big challenges.”
A person receives a COVID19 test in Broadmeadows after officials knock on doors to check if people have any symptoms and would like a COVID-19 test. Source: AAP
“If I will give you an example, we have got 18,590 people that have been in total hotel quarantine in Victoria. There is a larger number in NSW and that’s just the function of the number of flights that have returned,” he said.
“There are different types of flights as well, for instance, we had a flight from Montevideo if my memory serves me correctly there were about a hundred people on that flight and just about everybody on that flight had it. We have had some of those really big challenges and so has NSW.”
The state now expects to reign in the escalating case importation from overseas with assistance from the defence forces.
“We think it’s fantastic that we have got ADF support particularly whether its flying samples to other capital cities for their laboratories to help us out, ADF support to get people from the airport to the hotel where they will be quarantined for 14 days or ADF support at the Melbourne Showgrounds for instance where they will be many-many thousands of tests done,” he added.
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