CORONAVIRUS —
INTERSTATE BORDER RESTRICTIONS — SOUTH AUSTRALIA
923. Mr
M.J. FOLKARD to the Minister for Health:
I
refer to the decisive action taken by the state government in responding to the
recent outbreak of COVID-19 in South Australia. Can the minister update the house
on the measures being undertaken to ensure that our hotel quarantine processes remain strong, and outline any other
measures that have been implemented to ensure Western Australians are
being kept safe and strong?
Mr R.H.
COOK replied:
I
thank the member for Burns Beach for the question. It is an important one
because we know that a decisive and speedy response and decision-making is absolutely vital for getting any
outbreak of this disease under control. The McGowan government's
response has been that: it has been decisive, rapid and focused on keeping Western
Australians safe and strong.
I acknowledge the great work done by
all government agencies in responding to the call to act on the decisions made
by the government and for making sure that they put those changes in place that
are necessary for keeping Western Australians safe. WA Health has been working
closely with government agencies and airlines to prepare for and manage the
influx of arrivals into the state post the changes to the border requirements,
in particular to prevent the co-mingling of passengers from very low risk
states, low-risk states and medium-risk states to ensure that the airport
infection control processes are in place.
WA nursing staff numbers were
boosted at the airport to meet the demand for the increased passenger arrivals.
Passengers are required to complete a health declaration via the G2G PASS app
and undergo airport health screens, including temperature checks. All
passengers with an elevated temperature of 37.5 degrees and above will be
offered a COVID-19 test at the airport clinic. Anyone who is symptomatic and
has a COVID test at the airport will be required to go straight home and
isolate until they receive their results. To date, 521 971 COVID-19 tests have
been performed Western Australia. Of those, 112 000 were done in regional Western
Australia. WA Health has contacted exempt travellers for over 22 weeks now,
offering daily monitoring.
The
unfolding situation in South Australia obviously makes us reflect strongly upon
our hotel quarantine arrangements. The hotel quarantine arrangements in
WA are under intense oversight by the State Health Incident Coordination Centre
representatives. We examine all potential incidences and breaches by hotel
management and security management, with
immediate investigation and rectification if that has occurred. Regular meetings
are held between hotel and security management and regular audits are
conducted for infection prevention and control, including staff training for
security workers and hotel staff. It also involves strong compliance with
infection control and the use of personal protective equipment by all agencies.
The
situation in South Australia gives us pause to reflect. As a result of that
situation, we are extending our DETECT Borders program—our
voluntary testing program—for all our border healthcare and security
workers and the like to transition to
mandatory testing of all high-risk workers, similar to the transport and
logistics testing regime, which is a seven-day rolling testing
arrangement for our high-risk hotel workers. These are all important measures.
They are there for a reason. They are there to keep Western Australians safe.
The Department of Health has done an outstanding
job to make sure that we continue to keep an eye on our hotel and border
arrangements, and it has done Western Australians proud. We are very
pleased with the work that has been done.