Isolation ‘brutal’ in Australia
Peter Macky, who flew home from Berlin via Sydney, experienced managed isolation in both Australia and Auckland.
My managed isolation (MI) time in Sydney was as a guest of the New South Wales Government. Anyone transitting in Sydney overnight is required to go into quarantine.
It’s for 14 days but passengers with an onward international ticket are given an exemption to checkout early. For me, and my arrival on September 1, the process was a shambles.
In Auckland, we were processed and on the bus in 30 minutes. We were welcomed and treated as people. That was not my experience in Sydney. There we spent three hours waiting in lines to be processed by surly individuals seemingly indifferent to our arrival.
Another big difference between countries is the Australian Government restricts the numbers returning to 4000 a week. That’s far less than the demand.
The result is that many Australians are taking months to return and those that make it are often forced into business class. As an example: a young Aussie I chatted to while we waited not so patiently in line in Sydney. It had taken her three months to get home from Yorkshire. She’d been bumped by the airline three times and to get back, had to travel in business. I’d seen these stories in the press. I don’t blame the airlines. Their flights can’t be economic now, with such low numbers allowed back. So why wouldn’t they try and force passengers into business class to reduce their losses? New Zealanders don’t have these constraints.
In NSW, quarantine passengers are not given keys to their rooms which they cannot leave for 14 days; not for exercise, not for a smoke, not for anything. It’s brutal. Meals arrive from the contracted caterer in a plastic bag, mid-morning, with lunch and dinner that day and breakfast the following morning. We weren’t told what was in the meals and the hotel had no idea. I asked. It definitely wasn’t a healthy, balanced diet, not from what I saw. And Australians have to pay for their quarantine, which starts at A$3000 (NZ$3252) per adult. For two adults and two children, it’s A$5000.
The 14 nights at Auckland’s Grand Millennium was a very different experience. Just having a room key, that ubiquitous credit card-size piece of plastic was a great start. This did so much more than open my door, it was (and I am trying to keep this from being too cheesy), for me, a life. It meant I wasn’t a prisoner (although that’s not strictly true), but at least I was free to be able to explore the hotel – socially distanced of course. I could take the lift, so long as I was the sole occupant, to exercise or to engage with other guests, staff, security personnel and the Covid-19 Health team.
Having experienced just one night under the NSW quarantine regime, where if you leave your room you cannot return, unless the army officer accepts your explanation. Our Covid-19 quarantine regime is safe, humane and rational.