Brigadier ready for quarantine ‘what-ifs’
The people of Hamilton – and New Zealand at large – don’t need to live in fear of any further mass breakouts from their local Covid19 quarantine hotels, reckons Brigadier Jim Bliss.
Bliss – who took over from Air Commodore Darryn Webb earlier this month as the head of Managed Isolation and Quarantine (MIQ) – was in Hamilton yesterday to check out the Ibis Tainui, Jet Park and Distinction hotels, where many arrivals from overseas have been seeing out their 14-day stand-down before entering society.
The latter facility was the scene of a dramatic incident in July, in which five members of the same family broke out and ran off from the hotel.
The absconders sparked a fullscale late night manhunt that struck fear into nearby residents and riled the city’s politicians – however Bliss said he did not expect any such events to happen again.
‘‘I’m confident we have got the best security plans in place. These are not prisoners, they are not detention centres. It’s a partnership between the returnees, the management and the staff,’’ he said.
In the July mass breakout from the Distinction Hotel, it turned out the runaways were a
37-year-old woman and her children aged 18, 17, 16 and 12, who were trying to get to see the body of the children’s recently deceased father.
The mother, who cannot be identified due to her children being dealt with under Youth Court jurisdiction, was sentenced to 14 days in prison in August.
About 85,000 people had come through the New Zealand border since tight controls had been put in place by the New Zealand Government, and there had been only
10 ‘‘abscondee-type incidents to date’’.
‘‘Most people are very, very compliant and follow the rules and just want to move on with their lives. Security has been enhanced at those facilities with new fencing and CCTV, and the Defence Force coming in to provide an additional level of backup.’’
Each of the Hamilton facilities had a management team of four Defence Force staff in place, with the security split between soldiers and local security firm staff.
Bliss said he was extremely happy with the ‘‘continuous improvement’’ of the Hamilton facilities as time had gone on, including the increased integration and co-operation of the hotel management and staff, defence personnel and medical staff.
Bliss seems well suited to the MIQ job. Until his appointment in early December, he had been serving as Land Component Commander at Headquarters Joint Forces New Zealand. Many of his roles during his 30-year army career had been in operations planning or in leadership.
While the future was difficult to predict, he said he expected the facilities to remain operational well into 2021, as variables such as the availability of Covid vaccines and potential travel bubbles with Australia and the Pacific Islands were determined.
Those changes could fundamentally change the country’s border controls, he said.
‘‘We are taking a close look at the what-ifs. We need to be agile ... [and] reactive to any policy changes.’’
Most of the 32 quarantine facilities around the country were booked out until March.
‘‘The returnees arrive on the bus and the representatives from Tainui and the hotel management team strive to keep them fully informed.
‘‘They undergo health checks and wellness checks to make sure their stay is hassle-free.
‘‘Each returnee has their own story. It’s up to the staff to make sure their 14 days are as pleasant as possible for them.’’