Melbourne’s Stamford Plaza is one of the hotels where Australian residents returning from overseas have been quarantined.
Photo: William west/Agence France-Presse/Getty ImagesSYDNEY—Australia’s decision to close its border and use hotels to quarantine returning residents initially helped prevent significant coronavirus outbreaks.
But the virus eventually found a way through the country’s defenses, and authorities are now trying to understand what went wrong.
Health officials have traced about 99% of recent infections in and around Australia’s second-largest city of Melbourne to two hotels that were part of the quarantine program. Victoria state, which includes Melbourne, now accounts for three quarters of the country’s approximately 25,000 coronavirus cases since the pandemic began, and most of its 549 deaths.
Australia isn’t among the hardest-hit countries, but understanding how its strategy has both worked and failed offers lessons in preventing the virus from spreading.
The country’s second-wave outbreak, which began in late May, has had some devastating consequences. The virus spread to homes that care for the elderly, leading to multiple deaths. A six-week lockdown in Melbourne, with most residents ordered to stay at home, will cost Australia’s economy billions of dollars. The crisis has undone some plans to reopen the country’s internal borders, dealing a new blow to industries including domestic tourism.
A government panel investigating the hotel-quarantine program in Victoria state has heard public testimony from nurses, security guards and quarantined hotel guests that has pointed to inadequate training, inconsistent use of masks and poor record-keeping as possible gaps in the system. Top officials who established and administered the program—called Operation Soteria after the Greek goddess of rescue and safety—have yet to testify.
The panel will make its recommendations in November.
Authorities have already overhauled the program, putting police and the prison agency in charge of supervising guests and banning international flights into Melbourne to reduce demand for rooms.
Dozens of hotels across the country have hosted tens of thousands of quarantined travelers since March, when Australia began requiring quarantines, overseen by state-level authorities. Other countries, including Canada and New Zealand, have also used hotel quarantines, and infectious-disease experts say they can be effective.
A drive-through coronavirus test in Melbourne earlier this month.
Photo: James Ross/ShutterstockThe only people typically being allowed into Australia are citizens, permanent residents and their immediate family members. They are taken straight from airport to hotel, where they must stay in their rooms for 14 days. Meals are delivered, there are supervised fresh-air breaks and medical staff phone daily to check for symptoms, quarantined guests said. States formerly covered the cost, but in recent weeks they have started requiring people to pay for their quarantines.
“With the proper engineering and the proper structure and processes, then it could be managed appropriately,” said Philip Russo, an associate professor at Monash University and president of the Australasian College for Infection Prevention and Control, a professional association. “I don’t know what the alternatives are.”
In Australia and New Zealand, attention has focused on the programs as sources of outbreaks.
The origin of an outbreak in Auckland, New Zealand’s biggest city, is still unknown, but some officials suspect a hotel-quarantine breach. In Sydney, Australia’s biggest city, two security guards at a quarantine hotel recently tested positive for the virus. Police on Tuesday started relocating 366 guests from another hotel because it didn’t meet quarantine requirements.
In testimony to the Victoria panel, one security guard who also tested positive for the new coronavirus said he wasn’t required to complete any infection-control training before working at three quarantine hotels for two different subcontractors. At one Melbourne hotel later linked to the outbreak, he wasn’t told that people had tested positive for the coronavirus until a few days after he started working, he said.
Other witnesses raised concerns about people working at multiple hotels, potentially spreading the virus. Luke Ashford, a government employee who helped supervise the hotels, said he was posted at seven different quarantine hotels before quitting because he felt the work environment was unsafe.
A nurse who testified anonymously told the panel that it appeared many people in the program hadn’t been properly trained in using personal protective equipment.
A nearly deserted Melbourne street last month.
Photo: Carla Gottgens/Bloomberg NewsMichael Tait, another nurse, recalled seeing one ungloved government official, wearing a mask incorrectly below his nose, processing arrivals and handling paperwork filled out by travelers.
Sue Erasmus, a quarantined guest, said security guards appeared to use the same gloves for long periods. She worried they would transfer the virus to the food being delivered to the rooms.
“We were pretty much sitting ducks,” said Ms. Erasmus, whose hotel was one of the two that had a coronavirus outbreak. “We were just hoping that we would be OK.”
Others who worked at the quarantine hotels told the panel there were sufficient masks and gloves and that training was provided.
Kaan Ofli, who was in quarantine with his partner, said he learned on the 10th day that authorities had no record he was quarantined. For fresh-air breaks, Mr. Ofli said a guard with a mask took them down in an elevator. Once they were outside, he said, masks weren’t required and social distancing wasn’t strictly enforced.
Testing may have been inconsistent and different across hotels. Some guests were told they wouldn’t be tested unless they showed symptoms. But a security guard told the panel that guests were offered a test within three days and again at 11 days.
A spokesperson for the Victoria government said infection-control and professional standards in the hotel-quarantine program have been strengthened, but declined to discuss specific matters raised by the nurses, guards and guests. “We will let the inquiry do its work,” the spokesperson said.
Write to Mike Cherney at mike.cherney@wsj.com
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