I left Brissy on Wednesday to do some work in northern NSW, and am now holed down for three days courtesy of COVUK. It’s the same approach that SA used with their recent Parafield outbreak and totally the right way to do it IMO, particularly as it’s the new Pommy pox variant. Apparently 80% of return travellers are coming from countries that have the UK strain - collective sphincters are rightfully puckering in the National Cabinet.
What is stupid is that there is no national standard for HQ management. Surely after the clusterfuck in Victoria the other states had assimilated the lessons learnt and tightened up their own HQ processes. Yet breaches are still occurring and arguably the highest risk workers in the country at the moment are free to work multiple jobs and only get tested weekly - they’re potentially infectious in the community for a week before it gets picked up. If these workers are exposed to infection risk on a daily basis, then why the fuck aren’t they being tested on a daily basis?
The Aus Govt is bringing in mandatory rapid testing of travellers at the point of origin - they should be doing similar with the potentially at-risk workers like air crews, airport transfer bus drivers and anyone working in quarantine hotels. Daily testing of all those workers as a minimum, and preferably have them working in “reverse bubbles” where possible to limit potential spread into the community.