MELBOURNE: Australian authorities ordered a snap, three-day lockdown in the western city of Perth after a covid outbreak in a hotel quarantine facility led to community transmission.
Western Australia Premier Mark McGowan said on Saturday there were no new community transmissions from the outbreak, although contact tracing and testing were still going on.
McGowan called on the national government to establish designated quarantine facilities after the latest leakage of the virus from hotel quarantine.
“I have been calling for the commonwealth’s assistance with quarantine for many months now,” McGowan said.
He said that while the hotel quarantine system has largely worked, with tens of thousands of travelers passing through it, the national government must find new facilities outside crowded downtown locations.
“(Downtown) hotels are not fit for purpose quarantine facilities, and quarantine is the responsibility of the commonwealth government under the constitution,” McGowan said.
The Australian Medical Association (AMA) on Saturday also urged a review of the hotel quarantine system to prevent further outbreaks.
“There are still holes that can be plugged,” Omar Khorshid, AMA’s president told the ABC national broadcaster.
The latest lockdown was ordered after a returning traveler who tested negative on release from a Perth quarantine hotel later tested positive for COVID-19, with authorities suspecting he became infected while in the hotel.
The man spent several days in Perth and infected another person before his infection was diagnosed.
In Western Australia’s third lockdown, people in the state capital Perth and the neighboring Peel region have been asked to stay home except for essential work, and medical and shopping purposes.
Ceremonies to honor Australia’s military personnel on the Anzac Day holiday on Sunday have been canceled and people were urged to commemorate privately. Last year, the coronavirus pandemic forced most traditional memorials to be canceled across Australia for the first time in decades.
Rugby players from Queensland state who were returning from Perth were asking their state government to allow them to skip a mandatory quarantine ahead of their championship final on May 8.
