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From early this year, the World Health Organization (WHO) and governments all over the world were grappling with how to reduce the spread of COVID-19 and avoid overburdening health systems and workers in such a connected world.
Commonly used measures to reduce the spread of COVID-19 throughout 2020 have included social distancing, lockdowns and restrictions on the movement of people in the community plus, in the case of people entering a country from overseas, a period of quarantine.
These measures have been, and continue to be, used across Australia. Of significance to the work of the COVID-19 Hotel Quarantine Inquiry was the 14-day period of mandatory quarantine that was announced on 27 March 2020 and implemented for all international arrivals into Victoria from 29 March 2020.
 Private security guards were the wrong choice to guard Victoria s returned travellers in the hotel quarantine scheme and no person or agency took responsibility for the decision to use them, an inquiry has found. Retired judge Jennifer Coate said in her final report into the $195 million program that no one took ownership for the decision to use private guards and all vigorously disputed the possibility they could have played a part in the decision . Ms Coate said police would have been a better cohort than private guards. Consideration was not given to the appropriateness or implications of using a largely casualised workforce in an environment where staff had a high likelihood of being exposed to the highly infectious COVID-19, Ms Coate said in her report on Monday.
Ex-health minister Jenny Mikakos slams failed Victorian coronavirus hotel quarantine inquiry, accuses Daniel Andrews of deflection
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MonMonday 21
updated
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Jenny Mikakos quit Parliament in September in the wake of the inquiry s hearings.
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Victoria s former health minister Jenny Mikakos has accused Premier Daniel Andrews of political deflection over the inquiry into the state s bungled hotel quarantine program.
Key points:
Mr Andrews yesterday said if Ms Mikakos was still health minister, he would have expected her resignation
Ms Mikakos said the inquiry failed to answer key questions and called for the Premier s phone records to be released
Victorian hotel quarantine inquiry report unable to determine who made private security decision
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MonMonday 21
updated
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DecDecember 2020 at 7:26am
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The final report from the inquiry into Victoria s botched hotel quarantine program has been unable to determine who commissioned the use of private security and has slammed the Andrews Government for failing to do proper analysis of the plan.
Key points:
The report found former police chief Graham Ashton was consulted about using private security