I hope everyone is travelling well and getting through this.

[gnrc_louis]

ps, his name/photo/etc are all information in the public domain on facebook and other social media that he chose to share.

He might have chosen to share it on social media, but I would hope that people aren't irresponsibly sending it around and promoting vigilantism. Thankfully we live in a country where the rule of law is well established and it's up to the state to punish the wrongdoer, not mobs of vigilantes.

Sure, the ATO should go after the pizza bar, but the more nuanced reality is a large number of small businesses rely on the cash economy, and it would probably have a catastrophic impact if the ATO implemented a broader crackdown.

[Jaymz]

I find it funny that this is referred to as the "Parafield Cluster" and not the "Medi-Hotel Cluster" I mean, that's where it all started from, isn't it?

[SRW]

I find it funny that this is referred to as the "Parafield Cluster" and not the "Medi-Hotel Cluster" I mean, that's where it all started from, isn't it?

It's been a very nifty comms strategy from the government designed to make oblique any direct responsibility. See also the stuff around 'superstrain' and 'circuit breaker' instead of 'lockdown'. The abandon with which they've demonised this person for their lie also suggests he's seen as convenient cover any other errors there may have been. That being said, I'm generally satisfied with the way it's been handled and am grateful for the embedded competence in this state. But I wish the government (both state and federal) could face the fact that, more often than not, outbreaks of this virus in our country have been a consequence of the harshness of our current industrial system -- too many people in insecure work who can't afford or have insufficient options to isolate.

[rev]

ps, his name/photo/etc are all information in the public domain on facebook and other social media that he chose to share.

He might have chosen to share it on social media, but I would hope that people aren't irresponsibly sending it around and promoting vigilantism. Thankfully we live in a country where the rule of law is well established and it's up to the state to punish the wrongdoer, not mobs of vigilantes.

Sure, the ATO should go after the pizza bar, but the more nuanced reality is a large number of small businesses rely on the cash economy, and it would probably have a catastrophic impact if the ATO implemented a broader crackdown.

Vigilantism? No.
Naming and shaming so people can avoid any future businesses the clown starts? Absolutely.

[ghs]

The standards at the medi hotels have been very poor.

Recently, as part of my work I received a delivery with the destination being the Pullman hotel where people were quarantining.

Upon arriving at the hotel I waited at the entrance of the hotel. Amazingly, the staff inside the hotel directed me to enter the hotel. I politely told the staff that there is no way in the world in which I am going to take one more step closer to your feral covid19 infected hotel.

From memory the staff there on the ground floor weren't wearing masks.

I can accept that a cleaner at the Peppers hotel picked up the virus from a surface. However if all the staff at the hotel were wearing masks and distancing properly then how did the two security guards get the virus from the cleaner ?

Also, how the hell is it acceptable for a security guard at a medi hotel to work at a pizza bar ?

The government has mandated that workers at aged care homes cannot work at multiple sites however a security guard at a medi hotel has no restrictions in terms of working a second job.

If the virus was controlled properly at the medi hotel then this lockdown disaster wouldn't have occurred.

[rev]

The standards at the medi hotels have been very poor.

How do you know, by your own admission you didn't go inside, you only saw the front desk staff.

I can accept that a cleaner at the Peppers hotel picked up the virus from a surface. However if all the staff at the hotel were wearing masks and distancing properly then how did the two security guards get the virus from the cleaner ?

Because as stated in the media, I dunno like 100 times already, they are related and live together.
The original cluster is 15 people of the same family.

The government has mandated that workers at aged care homes cannot work at multiple sites however a security guard at a medi hotel has no restrictions in terms of working a second job.

He was working off the books, illegally. There's no record of such people as far as the government is concerned. They don't pay tax, their not on any systems. It's cash in hand. You turn up, do the job, get paid cash from the bosses hand to your hand at the end of your shift. They were caught out because the story they gave to the contact tracers didn't make sense, and things weren't adding up. The dots were not connecting to form the correct picture. Nicola Spurier even said as much in one of her press briefings. Pay attention.

If the virus was controlled properly at the medi hotel then this lockdown disaster wouldn't have occurred.

By all accounts of what the authorities are saying, this particular strain is easily transmittable within a day without symptoms being shown, and is easily caught from surfaces.

[rev]

Paul Starick: Repurpose Woomera detention centre for COVID-19 quarantine

Why risk an outbreak by having a quarantine hotel in the middle of the city? Woomera, hundreds of kilometres away, would have everything we need, Paul Starick writes.
Paul Starick
Chief Reporter
@paulstarick
November 19, 2020 - 8:00PM
The Advertiser

The former Woomera immigration detention centre should be considered as a quarantine bubble for repatriated Australians to severely restrict chances for COVID-19 to leak into capital cities.

Putting a quarantine facility in a well-serviced yet isolated town with a military airstrip would lessen the risk of a major virus flare-up in a large population centre.

Adelaide’s outbreak has been triggered by a cleaner who contracted the virus at a medi-hotel and intensified by an infectious quarantine security guard working a second job at Woodville Pizza Bar.

Premier Steven Marshall on Thursday said this had prompted a quarantine review, including whether medi-hotel staff should be restricted from working at other sites, as aged care staff have been in South Australia.

But that restriction prevents contagious people importing COVID-19 into aged care centres and infecting highly vulnerable residents. It is very difficult to prevent infectious quarantine hotel staff exporting the virus into the capital city communities in which they live and unleashing an outbreak.

Police Commissioner Grant Stevens, also the state co-ordinator during the COVID-19 emergency, said it was an unreasonable expectation that security guards, police officers, nurses, caterers, cleaners and other medi-hotel staff “will be isolated from the rest of the community while they’re providing that service”.

As Mr Stevens said, the first level of risk mitigation is not allowing infected people to return to Australia. Having accepted that, as he said, the community’s obligation is to manage that risk as much as possible.

“But this is an insidious virus that is highly contagious. People with decades of experience in the health sector catch this virus when they’re treating people with the disease,” he said.

Therefore, there is a risk from these workers mixing in a capital city community – shopping, filling up at petrol stations and so on – even if they did not have second jobs.

Repurposing and reopening the Woomera Immigration Reception and Processing Centre in SA’s Far North would diminish this risk by isolating workers in a bubble.

Woomera, 190km northwest of Port Augusta, was designed as a closed town for defence and space testing, launches and research. It was a restricted area until 1982 and had a checkpoint at the town’s entrance.

It is about 7km from the Adelaide to Darwin railway and the Stuart Highway, the only incoming road. The Woomera Defence Range Complex includes an airstrip capable of landing the world’s largest planes, including the Boeing 767 that transferred the first group of asylum seekers to the detention centre in November, 1999.

Woomera has, at various times, supported large defence operations, the nearby, defunct United States Nurrungar spy base and a detention centre housing almost 1500 people.

Camp Rapier, which the detention centre site became known as, is now a secure garrison support and specialised training compound within the Woomera Prohibited Area.

A quarantine facility could be scaled up to ensure staff remained in the town bubble, rather than risk spreading the virus throughout capital cities. Just as mining workers do, they could fly in and fly out with appropriate medical checks.

This would be a significant operation to set up but the virus is surging across Europe and the US, with the prospect of a population-wide vaccine many months away.

A National Review of Hotel Quarantine, which reported in October, recommended a national quarantine facility for emergency situations, evacuations or “urgent scalability”. Woomera should be considered alongside the Northern Territory’s Howard Springs.

The COVID-19 crisis is not going away and nor will the risks from hotel quarantine. There is a potential solution on our doorstep, that should be seriously examined.

https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/opi ... 87bd9e299e

Very sensible and logical suggestion.

We've now had two outbreaks in two cities linked to quarantine.
Victoria got shut down for months, and we're lucky to escape with a 3-4 day lockdown only at the moment.

Neither lockdown would have happened if the quarantined were located at Woomera.

[rev]

Curtin detention centre - 1500
Woomera detention centre - 1500
Manus Island detention centre - 1100
Wickham Point detention centre - 1000
Christmas Island detention centre - 800
Baxter detention Centre - 660
Port Hedland detention Centre - 600
Yongah Hill detention centre - 600
Scherger detention centre - 600

That's nearly 8,500 beds.

How many people are currently in quarantine in hotels across the country?

[gnrc_louis]

Curtin detention centre - 1500
Woomera detention centre - 1500
Manus Island detention centre - 1100
Wickham Point detention centre - 1000
Christmas Island detention centre - 800
Baxter detention Centre - 660
Port Hedland detention Centre - 600
Yongah Hill detention centre - 600
Scherger detention centre - 600

That's nearly 8,500 beds.

How many people are currently in quarantine in hotels across the country?

The advertiser article reiterates what a number of epidemiologists have been suggesting for many months, that the medihotel system is seriously flawed - it's a shame they were not listened to sooner. The Federal Government should have shown some initiative and reopened their immigration detention facilities rather than hand-balling management to the States, then when things went wrong i.e. Victoria, blaming the States.

[SBD]

Curtin detention centre - 1500
Woomera detention centre - 1500
Manus Island detention centre - 1100
Wickham Point detention centre - 1000
Christmas Island detention centre - 800
Baxter detention Centre - 660
Port Hedland detention Centre - 600
Yongah Hill detention centre - 600
Scherger detention centre - 600

That's nearly 8,500 beds.

How many people are currently in quarantine in hotels across the country?

The advertiser article reiterates what a number of epidemiologists have been suggesting for many months, that the medihotel system is seriously flawed - it's a shame they were not listened to sooner. The Federal Government should have shown some initiative and reopened their immigration detention facilities rather than hand-balling management to the States, then when things went wrong i.e. Victoria, blaming the States.

How many quarantined people can live in a 1500-person facility? Is it as many as 750? The other rooms need to be occupied by the security staff, cleaners, cooks, etc. Then the facility needs to have a hospital suitable for managing any infected cases that get worse, so the facility also needs to have a hospital with an Intensive Care Unit, including enough suitably qualified staff, nurses, doctors etc. If we don't want these workers to be fly-in, fly-out from Adelaide and other major cities, then the town also has to have the facilities for their families - child care, school, shops.

Leigh Creek might be a possibility as it was set up in 1982 as a permanent mining town, and is now not needed for that, but still has facilities for the surrounding communities.

The problem that Nicola Spurrier talked of is that earlier in the pandemic, most people flying in to Adelaide were not infected, so the quarantine facilities were primarily to make sure. Now, other parts of the world are more heavily infected, so the proportion of people arriving who are infected is higher, which changes the risk profile.

[rev]

Curtin detention centre - 1500
Woomera detention centre - 1500
Manus Island detention centre - 1100
Wickham Point detention centre - 1000
Christmas Island detention centre - 800
Baxter detention Centre - 660
Port Hedland detention Centre - 600
Yongah Hill detention centre - 600
Scherger detention centre - 600

That's nearly 8,500 beds.

How many people are currently in quarantine in hotels across the country?

The advertiser article reiterates what a number of epidemiologists have been suggesting for many months, that the medihotel system is seriously flawed - it's a shame they were not listened to sooner. The Federal Government should have shown some initiative and reopened their immigration detention facilities rather than hand-balling management to the States, then when things went wrong i.e. Victoria, blaming the States.

How many quarantined people can live in a 1500-person facility? Is it as many as 750? The other rooms need to be occupied by the security staff, cleaners, cooks, etc. Then the facility needs to have a hospital suitable for managing any infected cases that get worse, so the facility also needs to have a hospital with an Intensive Care Unit, including enough suitably qualified staff, nurses, doctors etc. If we don't want these workers to be fly-in, fly-out from Adelaide and other major cities, then the town also has to have the facilities for their families - child care, school, shops.

Leigh Creek might be a possibility as it was set up in 1982 as a permanent mining town, and is now not needed for that, but still has facilities for the surrounding communities.

The problem that Nicola Spurrier talked of is that earlier in the pandemic, most people flying in to Adelaide were not infected, so the quarantine facilities were primarily to make sure. Now, other parts of the world are more heavily infected, so the proportion of people arriving who are infected is higher, which changes the risk profile.

Those things could easily be set up.
There's absolutely no need to move families and children of staff up there for rotational work.
You're not going to relocate people there.

What would happen, is the facilities would be reopened, cleaned out and prepared.
Temporary accommodation units can be very easily moved up there and setup quickly for staff, and in fact such transportable units can be setup for basically almost any purpose you can imagine.

Staffing is easily manageable too.
You would send staff, be it security, nurses, doctors, cooks, cleaners, up there on a 2 week basis.
They would go up there, quarantine separately from the civilians for the mandatory period, then get to work. Before returning to Adelaide, they would again go into quarantine. Rotating people in and out. And what's to say that there aren't suitable staff in nearby towns.
Or whatever similar arrangements.

Regardless of the arrangements, it is 1000% a better option then continuing to quarantine people in city hotels where outbreaks have happened and will probably happen again in the future. The people in quarantine right now are stuck in hotel rooms, the closest they come to outdoors is if they have a balcony or looking out of a window. At least up there, they could have a schedule where they could go for a walk or exercise.

[ghs]

So, the plot thickens. After Spurrier said yesterday morning she is putting champagne on ice, she then revealed in the afternoon that two people in quarantine at Peppers acquired Covid19 at the hotel.

There's some very serious issues and protocol breaches at the medi hotels. And spurrier needs to learn that until we get a vaccine next year, there is no reason to be putting champagne on ice.

[Nort]

The advertiser article reiterates what a number of epidemiologists have been suggesting for many months, that the medihotel system is seriously flawed - it's a shame they were not listened to sooner. The Federal Government should have shown some initiative and reopened their immigration detention facilities rather than hand-balling management to the States, then when things went wrong i.e. Victoria, blaming the States.

How many quarantined people can live in a 1500-person facility? Is it as many as 750? The other rooms need to be occupied by the security staff, cleaners, cooks, etc. Then the facility needs to have a hospital suitable for managing any infected cases that get worse, so the facility also needs to have a hospital with an Intensive Care Unit, including enough suitably qualified staff, nurses, doctors etc. If we don't want these workers to be fly-in, fly-out from Adelaide and other major cities, then the town also has to have the facilities for their families - child care, school, shops.

Leigh Creek might be a possibility as it was set up in 1982 as a permanent mining town, and is now not needed for that, but still has facilities for the surrounding communities.

The problem that Nicola Spurrier talked of is that earlier in the pandemic, most people flying in to Adelaide were not infected, so the quarantine facilities were primarily to make sure. Now, other parts of the world are more heavily infected, so the proportion of people arriving who are infected is higher, which changes the risk profile.

Those things could easily be set up.
There's absolutely no need to move families and children of staff up there for rotational work.
You're not going to relocate people there.

What would happen, is the facilities would be reopened, cleaned out and prepared.
Temporary accommodation units can be very easily moved up there and setup quickly for staff, and in fact such transportable units can be setup for basically almost any purpose you can imagine.

Staffing is easily manageable too.
You would send staff, be it security, nurses, doctors, cooks, cleaners, up there on a 2 week basis.
They would go up there, quarantine separately from the civilians for the mandatory period, then get to work. Before returning to Adelaide, they would again go into quarantine. Rotating people in and out. And what's to say that there aren't suitable staff in nearby towns.
Or whatever similar arrangements.

Regardless of the arrangements, it is 1000% a better option then continuing to quarantine people in city hotels where outbreaks have happened and will probably happen again in the future. The people in quarantine right now are stuck in hotel rooms, the closest they come to outdoors is if they have a balcony or looking out of a window. At least up there, they could have a schedule where they could go for a walk or exercise.

Easily?

These facilities generally aren't set up to isolate people in the way that is required for medical quarantine. It's also worth pointing out that the more complicated you make a system (and this plan would involve extra staffing, travel, and new facilities/procedures) the more potential points of failure you introduce.

That isn't to say it's impossible, and I would hope and assume that authorities have looked at these options carefully, but to say it is easy sets off many risk analysis warning bells.

[rev]

Nothing is 100% fullproof.
But when something goes wrong out at Woomera, it is contained in an isolated area away from the bulk of our population.
That has a smaller impact on the state then an outbreak in Adelaide, or any other major city.

And that's the whole point. The virus that exists in Australia is being imported. It is being imported straight into our cities in the medi-hotels. From there it has escaped, and is out in the community now, the so called "parafield cluster". Same thing happened in Melbourne. Their lockdown lasted for months. 800 mostly elderly died.

How much worse will they wait for it to get, before they get serious about quarantine and move them to remote locations?
Not just the lives that could be lost (I don't know about you, but I value the elderly - and they're the majority of the dead from this), but how much more economic damage are we going to inflict on our selves with lockdowns?

This virus has a survival rate of something like 99.97%. Slightly worse for the elderly due to their underlying conditions.
Move the infected to the remote detention centres, and let the rest of Australia get on with life and rebuilding a near shattered national economy. For fucks sake, we have the Liberals in power, not Labor and the Greens.

And what do you mean it's not easy to get it done?
We have massive mining operations in the middle of nowhere, in some of the most remote places in the world, not just here in Australia but in other parts of the world. Mines with thousands of people living and working there. Every day there are supplies flown and driven to those mining operations. Those mining camps have all the creature comforts of home too.
We already have the buildings in a secure environment setup in the form of detention centres that can accommodate thousands of people.
They have power, water, gas.
Get the ADF involved with helping to get them ready, setup medical facilities.

It's not that bloody hard. Stop pretending like it is. It is literally the movement of people and equipment on a bitumen highway to a secure facility. There's been bigger and harder undertakings done in mankinds history.

[Nort]

And what do you mean it's not easy to get it done?
We have massive mining operations in the middle of nowhere, in some of the most remote places in the world, not just here in Australia but in other parts of the world. Mines with thousands of people living and working there. Every day there are supplies flown and driven to those mining operations. Those mining camps have all the creature comforts of home too.
We already have the buildings in a secure environment setup in the form of detention centres that can accommodate thousands of people.
They have power, water, gas.
Get the ADF involved with helping to get them ready, setup medical facilities.

It's not that bloody hard. Stop pretending like it is. It is literally the movement of people and equipment on a bitumen highway to a secure facility. There's been bigger and harder undertakings done in mankinds history.

Remember, the vast majority of people in hotel quarantine are not infected. Any solution has to both prevent the virus from getting out and prevent it from spreading to other people staying there.