Lodge Quarantine Beneath Scrutiny as Australian State Races to Comprise COVID-19 Outbreak  | Voice of America

SYDNEY – As the Australian state of Victoria begins its third day of a COVID-19 lockdown, the national medical association calls for urgent changes to infection control in hotel quarantine. Australian travelers returning from overseas must be isolated for at least 14 days upon arrival. However, doctors fear that airborne transmission of the virus is not being taken seriously enough.

Biosecurity is a growing concern for the Australian hotel quarantine system after new and highly contagious variants of COVID-19 were discovered in returning travelers.

A five-day lockdown in Victoria state on Friday was in response to a series of infections at a hotel at Melbourne Airport. Infections were passed on from passengers to employees, allowing the virus to spread to the community. The lockdown was ordered to give contact tracers enough time to track known employees of those who tested positive for the virus.

However, the doctors believe that there is an urgent need to check the ventilation and personal protective equipment of hotel workers.

Chris Moy, federal vice president of the Australian Medical Association, says biosafety controls need to be tightened.

“Quarantine is our first and most important line of defense. Holes have been punched into these new varieties in particular. It’s not just the spread of droplets, it’s the large droplets that you just cough up. It only remains fairly local to this airborne spread, where COVID can essentially be ingested as a fog and remain in the air and therefore is far more contagious for a long period of time, “Moy said.

Victoria has been in its third coronavirus lockdown since the pandemic began.

FILE – A company is chained and padlocked on the first day of a five-day lockdown in the state of Victoria in response to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Melbourne, Australia on February 13, 2021.

Starting Monday, more citizens will be allowed to return to New South Wales, Australia’s most populous state. However, the Victorian government has proposed severely restricting return flights in order to contain the spread of new virus variants.

FILE – A largely empty domestic terminal at Sydney Airport is seen after surrounding states closed their borders with New South Wales on December 21, 2020 in Sydney, Australia.

Head of State Daniel Andrews said Australia needs to have a “cold, hard discussion” about reducing international arrivals.

His comments have caused anger and consternation among thousands of Australians stranded overseas.

Foreigners were banned from Australia last March, but citizens and permanent residents can return. They must be quarantined on arrival, and weekly quotas limit the number of travelers allowed home.

The Canberra government has also announced that it will end quarantine-free New Zealanders after three COVID-19 cases were recorded in Auckland and were banned for three days.

Australia’s first shipment of Pfizer vaccine has arrived, but federal authorities have admitted that distributing it in such a large country would not be a flawless exercise. A mass vaccination program is scheduled to begin by the end of the month.

Australia has recorded nearly 29,000 coronavirus cases since the pandemic began. New Zealand has detected around 2,200 infections in the Tasman Sea.