‘It’s not about luck’: Expert calls for Victoria’s quarantine program to be paused

An infectious diseases expert is calling for Victoria’s hotel quarantine program to be shut down temporarily, until the flaws in the system can be fixed.

Professor of Infectious Diseases at University of Melbourne, Lindsay Graham, says the state should not take any more international arrivals until “we can make the system safe for the travellers and for the workers”.

He says Victoria has failed to adopt many of recommendations made by hotel quarantine inquiry, and if the recommendations had been followed, the state would not be in this position.

“Jennifer Coate must be now tearing her hair out because she provided 69 recommendations, very clear recommendations … how to institute a quarantine program, and of those 10 of them were about infection control,” he told Ross and Russel.

“It’s pretty clear at least four of those 10 were not followed and that’s what led to the Holiday Inn outbreak.

“It’s not about luck.

“NSW has had … roughly five or seven times more returned travellers than Victoria, and yet they haven’t had the same problems as us.

“It’s a difference in mindset about how we apply quarantine.”

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