> route all international flights to an airport in remote location (not one in a large city) where absolutely everyone involved in the process be they passangers, crew or quarantine staff must stay for two weeks with zero exceptions.
That's not practical.
You need capacity to house at least 10,000 people in quarantine, then another 1,000 staff to look after them. Ideally you'd also be close to a major hospital and the airlines certainly wouldn't sign up to having their staff made to quarantine after every inbound flight.
A large federally-funded quarantine facility on the outskirts of each state capital would fulfill the need for quarantine that can operate at capacity, whilst limiting transmission. It's not rocket science, but unfortunately it is politics.
The past couple of years have caused me to really become ashamed of being Australian. Being part of an increasingly globalised society, I found the government's blanket dictat of "Australians come home now" to belong to another era. With 4% of its population living in other countries, one would assume they would try harder to not alienate their diaspora.
It's not rocket science but does require some foresight. Realistically it would take 6 months - 1 year to fully build out quarantine sites that could fully replace hotel quarantine.
If the governments had started on this in March 2020 it would have been worthwhile but these facilities are only just starting to be built now, are too small to entirely replace hotel quarantine, and will be largely redundant by the time they open if NSW and VIC continue on their current paths.
Maybe we could use some of the 600 million earmarked for politically convenient carparks? [1]
Compared with the eyewatering sums thrown about to keep the economy alive while closed off to the world, a series of quarantine facilities that allow us to open up is surely doable.
It's not really a cost issue it a logistics (better to locate them on the edge of large cities rather than remote areas) and timing (these facilities weren't seriously considered until it was already too late) issue.
That's not practical.
You need capacity to house at least 10,000 people in quarantine, then another 1,000 staff to look after them. Ideally you'd also be close to a major hospital and the airlines certainly wouldn't sign up to having their staff made to quarantine after every inbound flight.