Scummo plots foreign traveller self-isolation to spray virus everywhere

Via the ABC comes the mother of all bad ideas:

The Prime Minister’s plan to allow selected incoming travellers from overseas to skip hotel quarantine and isolate at home has been cautiously supported by two leading infectious disease experts.

The idea comes from the Government’s health advisory body, the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee (AHPPC), which would assess the risks of visitors from individual nations.

Robert Booy, a senior professorial fellow at the National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance, said if people from those countries could be safely accommodated, Australia could more effectively restart travel and industry activity.

“So, from an economic and health point of view, I can see the benefits of this idea,” he said.

Peter Collignon, professor of microbiology at the Australian National University, said he agreed with the plan, provided it was based on an ongoing assessment of risk.

He named Taiwan, South Korea and Japan as some of the countries that Australia could consider relaxing its requirements for.

“I support the principle, but we need to assess what the real risk is for each nation, and tailor our restrictions proportionate to that risk … it’s not going to stay constant,” Professor Collignon said.

“On a weekly basis, the risk will change, so we will need to adjust things accordingly.

“And there are many other issues to assess, not just where people are coming from … but what their mental state is like and if they require special medical help.”

Mr Morrison gave the example of Denmark as a country that tailors its policy of allowing international arrivals based on the pandemic response of the passport holder’s home nation.

People being able to stay home could lead to ‘good compliance’

Since late March, returned travellers have had to spend two weeks in hotel quarantine to stop COVID-19 from spreading in the community.

An inquiry into Victoria’s hotel quarantine system has heard the system failed to protect the community and ultimately led to hundreds of deaths.

But before there was hotel quarantine, people were required to remain in self-isolation in their own homes.

Catherine Bennett, the chair of epidemiology at Deakin University in Melbourne, said initially the program was thought to be “unreliable” because many people could not be found at home when they were doorknocked by ADF and health officials.

But she said that did not turn out to be the case.

“It turned out … a lot of that actually was people didn’t come to the door or people were, legally, at their other address, not the address where they were knocking on the door,” she told RN Drive.

Professor Bennett said the program was actually very effective. There were no large outbreaks of coronavirus in the first wave and the virus was largely contained.

She said home quarantine could be made even safer today using manpower and technology.

“We do have these processes in place for large numbers of people in Melbourne that could then be repurposed to allow people, particularly from low-risk countries coming back to Australia, to take over that part of our home isolation program,” she said.

“If it means people can come home and be in their own homes then I’m sure that in itself could lead to quite good compliance.”

Hotel quarantine ‘puts people off’ Australia

Professor Booy agreed that mandatory hotel quarantine was no longer the best option for travellers arriving from low-risk countries.

And, as the inquiry into coronavirus hotel quarantine in Victoria has revealed, it is far from a perfect system.

“In going back to home quarantine as an option, we have to test it, but it’s likely to work.”

While it is unclear how the proposed home quarantine might work, Professor Booy said the risk was so minimal that returning Australians or permanent residents might even be able to be visited by family members during the 14-day period.

“If you’re at home, you might be able to see some people you want to see, but there’d have to be common sense,” Professor Booy said.

“Obviously, if you are keeping the amount of contact with people to a minimum, the overall risk is lower.”

Professor Collignon said it would be preferable that anyone in home quarantine who welcomed visitors did so in their backyard, rather than inside the house.

“Meeting someone outside is 20 times less risky, in terms of coronavirus infection, than inside,” he said.

As he outlined the Government’s plan, Mr Morrison spoke of a travel bubble with New Zealand in which visitors from both nations would skip quarantine altogether, due to the lack of community transmission on either side of the Tasman Sea.

The arrangement could be in place before Christmas, according to New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.

Need to avoid ‘bunny hopping’ from risky countries

While Professor Collignon said it was appropriate that New Zealanders would be granted this privilege, he warned that thorough checks and tracing would need to be foolproof to avoid any potential breach.

“There might be a 3-4 per cent chance that someone arriving from the US has COVID, while it could be as little as one-in-500,000 for New Zealanders.”

While both infectious disease experts could see the Government’s international travel plan implemented by the end of the year, they stressed that any mismanagement of the process could have disastrous consequences.

“We have to test it. It’s likely to work, but it needs to be done right,” said Professor Booy.

Professor Collignon agreed, adding that Australia “needs to take baby steps to get back to normal, and these are baby steps”.

WA’s latest border changes a chance to test ideas

Western Australia is easing its tough border restrictions and from October 5 will allow people who enter the state from Victoria to complete 14 days of self-isolation at a suitable premise like a house.

Premier Mark McGowan said the changes reflected updated health advice.

Western Australian police officers are using a new app called G2G Now, which uses facial recognition and location data tracking, for quarantine checks.

Professor Bennett said that could be used in a wider context to enforce home quarantine.

“It’s great if WA is going down this path because they can evaluate how this works,” she said.

She said if we know these apps work then that is exactly what could make home quarantine a “safe option”.

“The whole idea that someone could knock on your door and there are serious consequences, could further make the program work,” she said.

Do we really have to learn all of the lessons again? Hotel quarantine has shown us how stupid and irresponsible people are. Is “quite good compliance” appropriate quarantine procedure for COVID-19? Or, is it more likely that we’ll let loose tens or hundreds of thousands of folks in a hurry to start a holiday – with no responsibility to, or accountability for, Australia – to roam wherever they like to spread, spread, spread the contagion?

We’ve only just got this thing under control and any outbreak of substance will lead directly back to lockdowns for weary locals with another round of catastrophic economic fallout.

Let’s call this what it is. Another reckless attempt to reboot international students and mass immigration while putting the entire Australian community and economy at risk.