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Still hearing a lot of "why are we quarantining them in cities!" or "send them to Curtin Airbase/Mining camps/Christmas Island!" - a few #COVID19WA thoughts on why these, on balance, are bad ideas.
Firstly, Christmas Island has been explicitly ruled out by the Federal Government multiple times, while defence have taken military bases off the table.
Secondly, people talk about remote locations as if it eliminates the risk. It doesn't - all it does do is shift the risk to a population that is smaller and more vulnerable should an outbreak occur.
Thirdly, the type of specialist medical expertise needed to run a dedicated quarantine facility has proven historically difficult to attract to remote parts of WA - I've seen multiple positions with salaries in excess of $400,000-500,000 sit vacant for multiple years.
That leaves you reliant on locum physicians, the cost of which would boggle the mind. Appreciate the pandemic is a "spares no expense" situation, but given the approach taken with hotel quarantine so far, it doesn't seem like money the Government is keen to spend.
Proximity to established hospitals and Emergency Departments also matters - you have to plan for a worst case scenario. As we saw during the Kimberley outbreak last year - Regional EDs with a capacity to handle very restricted numbers of patients can be easily overhwelmed.
But let's say the Government does a complete about face, and drops $100 million turning RAAF Curtin into a quarantine facility.
Every risk associated with hotel quarantine is still there; it's just out of sight and out of mind for the metropolitan area and borne by residents in Derby, Pandanus Park and the wider Kimberley.
Everything would have to be self-contained. The same restrictions people want security guards to adhere to would have to apply to doctors, nurses, cleaners and whoever else is on site - something I haven't seen a great deal of enthusiasm for when it's been brought up.
And even the most well thought out system is going to have holes - locum medical staff were the source for at lease one of the Kimberley outbreaks (Halls Creek), which was only stopped by virtue of good contact tracing and luck.
That's not a knock on any of the medical personnel involved, who were doing their best in difficult circumstances, but regional communities shouldn't be obliged to carry the risk just because it's a convenient solution for Governments and metro residents.
Thanks for listening to my TED talk.
