The " Isolation " Question !

 We are fast finding that forcing people infected with the coronavirus to isolate in hotels is not a practical measure.  When hotels were designed and built the aim was to provide tranquility and comfort for guests and little thought was given to creating airlocks.

The bacteria has shown evidence that it can move from room to room and the movement of staff, delivering meals and servicing rooms provides another avenue for infection.  Hotels were a handy option in the early days of this pandemic, but we need a better solution to repatriate the thousands of Australian still trapped overseas.

Every state has multiple military training camps which contain exactly the facilities needed to service great numbers of people.  Beds, mess halls and exercise equipment is on hand and these camps are isolated from direct contact with the general public.  They have the capacity to house thousands of people with high security if that becomes necessary.

COVID-19 has shown that it has the capacity to develop different strains and those Australians trapped overseas are scattered across many hot spots where contagion is rife.  Our vaccination programme is running slowly and the refusal rate is growing, so we may not have herd immunity for quite a long period of time.

It is essential that when the airlines resume regular services and those returnees arrive we have facilities in place to give the necessary isolation without undue risk.  That will not be possible if we are still isolating people in hotels.

The eruption of this coronavirus caught the world by surprise, and it shouldn't have.   We have had earlier incidences of two similar epidemics, both of which involved the crossover of bacteria from the animal kingdom to humans.

Science predicts a coming food shortage and that will obviously encourage an even greater search for meat in the animal domain.  It has long been suspected that the highest risk comes from water bird species, but some avenues of science are pointing their finger at bats as the origin of COVID-19.

It is probably a miracle that we have had a long break between pandemics with the last one that caused multiple deaths occurring in 1918.  We may not be so lucky in the future and we would be wise to have facilities in place to achieve the necessary isolation should it become necessary.

Sheer logic indicates that military facilities tick all the boxers to make that a reality !