A guest staying at the same Perth hotel where a security guard tested positive for COVID-19 has sounded the alarm on the state's quarantine system, saying poor ventilation and PPE equipment had led to a "recipe for disaster".
It comes as health experts also added their voices to concerns air conditioning in hotels could be to blame for the outbreak which caused much of Western Australia to go into a snap five-day lockdown from last night.
Arsiyanti Ardie was taken to the Four Points by Sheraton in Perth after flying in from Jakarta on January 21.
Ms Ardie has several autoimmune disorders which cause respiratory and heart disease and is taking strong immune-suppressing drugs.
LIVE UPDATES: WA's five-day lockdown begins
"If I get COVID I die. Period," she told 9News.
"I needed to come home … and live in a safe environment, except I'm spending two weeks in quarantine in conditions that are ripe for the spread of COVID."
Ms Ardie said what she had seen happening in the hotel had left her extremely concerned, particularly when it came to the air circulation.
"Air circulation goes around the entire floor and in between rooms," she said.
"For example, if the hall or other rooms are being cleaned, the odour of cleaning products is strong in my room. If you want a Victoria-style recipe for disaster, this is it."
A door in Ms Ardie's room, which connects to an adjoining room, had spaces around the edge, and she could clearly hear a man constantly coughing in there.
President of the Australian Medical Association WA branch, Dr Andrew Miller, warned two weeks ago the state was risking an outbreak similar to Brisbane by keeping returned travellers in hotels with recirculated air.
Speaking to Today this morning, Dr Miller said the quarantine system needed an overhaul.
"We are very frustrated," he said.
"We are still running these sort of hybrid hotel quarantine facilities.
"We want professional quarantine facilities, not something that's been shoe-horned into a Sheraton.
"It would be better to use that building, change the ventilation, change the staff completely, and give them the top level PPE.
"Hotel quarantine was okay when it was the emergency, but we should have transitioned by now, using Commonwealth funds and state manpower to get the thing actually set up as a proper quarantine facility, with the ventilation, with the PPE, with the staffing."
Air conditioning has been raised by authorities as a possible cause of transmission in Brisbane's Grand Chancellor COVID-19 cluster last month, where four travellers, who were all staying on the same floor, a hotel cleaner and her partner became infected.
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk confirmed at the time air conditioning at the hotel would be investigated as part of a review of the hotel's quarantine system.
Ms Palaszczuk has pushed for the National Cabinet to examine the possibility of using other sites, such as mining camps, to quarantine returning travellers.
9News.com.au has contacted WA Health for comment.
from 9News https://ift.tt/2L99Wcc
via IFTTT
0 Comments