Australia's hotel quarantine system has always been flawed.
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Hotels are not fit-for-purpose quarantine facilities. They are hotels.
Security guards, police, cleaners and many others who work in the hotels are not highly trained in infection control protocols and why would they be.
Using hotels as quarantine facilities will never be perfect, but the system has been a significant line of defence against the risk posed to our community by Australians returning from COVID-riddled countries.
But quarantine failures have deadly consequences.
The most notable was the outbreak that swept through Melbourne in July. It claimed hundreds of lives, crippled Victoria's economy and confined residents to the strictest lockdown in the country.
The latest quarantine failure at a hotel in Western Australia sent Perth and the neighbouring Peel region into a snap lockdown.
Two locally-acquired cases were confirmed after the virus leaked out of the Perth Mercure hotel last week.
Authorities have identified 354 close contacts of the cases and 222 have so far returned negative test results.
WA Premier Mark McGowan lambasted the federal government for failing to provide better alternatives to hotel quarantine.
Mr McGowan said hotels were not fit for purpose and defence facilities like the Curtin Air Base in Derby or immigration detention facilities on Christmas Island would be better.
Federal Defence Minister Peter Dutton hit back at Mr McGowan and said those facilities were not suitable.
"Mark McGowan has made a mistake with the Mercure Hotel. Nobody is being critical of him for that. He doesn't need to be defensive. He doesn't want to be the next Dan Andrews where they had significant problems," Mr Dutton said.
Federal Labor's health spokesman Mark Butler has called on the federal government to step up and create more cabin-style quarantine facilities.
"We have that in the NT with Howard Springs. A very effective quarantine facility that allows open air, that allows people not to be swapping or sharing the same air with poor ventilation arrangements that we see in our hotels," he said.
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