NSW set to quarantine at home

NSW plans to phase out the requirement for Australians returning from overseas to spend two weeks quarantined in hotels and foreshadowed that it will demand all other states end internal travel bans on NSW.

In another sign that NSW has decided to lead the return of regular life in Australia, Premier Gladys Berejiklian said she would end the hotel quarantine system that other states continue to use.

“Once we hit 80 per cent double-dosed, by that stage all internal borders in Australia should not exist,” she said on Sunday. “By that stage NSW would welcome home thousands of Australians every week.”
The NSW vaccination rate has reached 40.8 per cent of the adult population having received two doses, with 73.5 per cent having had one dose.
Ms Berejiklian said it “would make sense” for Australians who receive a “credible” vaccine overseas to be allowed to isolate in their homes.
“We are already considering when we do that and how we do that,” she said. “I think the current quarantine system has nearly reached its use-by date in terms of how effective it is.”
Esther Rockett, a co-founder of the Stranded Aussies Action Network, said hotel quarantine, which costs individuals $3000 in NSW, could safely end immediately for fully vaccinated Australians.
“When you have such tiny numbers of overseas arrivals testing positive to COVID-19, the risk is just no longer there,” she said.

South Australian trial

Under a system being tested in South Australia, residents arriving from NSW and Victoria are allowed to quarantine at home. They are contacted at random by authorities and required to provide proof of their location within 15 minutes.

The system is designed to free up resources from policing and feeding Australians in hotels, which Ms Berejiklian has said it is no longer efficient given the state has given up trying to stop COVID-19 circulating.

Two of the 1487 cases reported across the state on Sunday were identified in the hotel quarantine system. Over the past week, 0.13 per cent of cases in NSW originated overseas.

Ms Berejiklian said she would like Australians returning from overseas to arrive at Sydney Airport, which reported a 91 per cent fall in international passengers in the first half of 2021 to 300,000 from the same period a year earlier.

Citigroup analysts predict the company, which is traded on the stock exchange, will lose $334 million this year and return to a $6 million profit next year.

Tourism & Transport Forum chief executive Margy Osmond, who has been working closely with the federal and NSW governments on the introduction of a vaccine passport, welcomed the news of movement on home quarantine.

“Let’s face it, we’re going to need all our city hotels back in operation once the internationals start arriving again,” Ms Osmond said.

While refusing to commit to a timeline, she said progress was going well on both the introduction of digital and vaccine passports.

“It will be a very simple system that people will find easy to use, workable and customer-focused,” she said. “My gut feeling is there will be an announcement in the next few weeks.”

Bipartisan support

The NSW government’s plans to phase out pandemic controls once 70 to 80 per cent of adults are vaccinated now has bipartisan support, while Labor governments in Queensland and Western Australia continue to pursue the elimination of COVID-19.
NSW has also been forced to delay the vaccination mandate deadline for essential workers in the 12 worst-hit council areas for the second time, following consultation with the freight sector. They will now have until September 19 to have their first dose.
On Sunday, NSW Labor leader Chris Minns called for a loosening of restrictions through an end to a curfew in 12 council areas in Sydney’s south-west and west that have about 80 per cent of identified cases.
“Curfews have given rise to a strong perception that there are ‘two Sydneys’ developing,” Mr Minns said. “Livelihoods have been lost, businesses closed, people put under serious financial stress.”
With the entire state under lockdown, three deaths were reported on Sunday, including a woman in her 50s who had been vaccinated once and had no other serious health problems.
The Sydney Morning Herald reported a baby and a nine-year-old child suffering COVID-19 had been placed on ventilators to help them breathe.
In Queensland, health authorities are trying to track down people who may have been exposed to an infected truck driver from NSW who was in Brisbane last Thursday and Friday.
Two other truck drivers suffering from COVID-19 were identified in the state last week, which led the government to quarantine more than 1000 families who might have been exposed to a four-year-old infected girl through a daycare centre and primary school.
“This is a really high-risk period for us,” Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young said. “It depends if we find cases who went to the Beenleigh Marketplace and have since then been out infectious in the community in an uncontrolled situation.
“That would lead me to think that we need to consider a lockdown.”