Australia's quarantine system makes sense 19 May 2021 | 2 mins Q and A with epidemiologist Dr Zoë Hyde, from The University of Western Australia’s Medical School. Following recent outbreaks of the COVID-19 virus into the community from quarantine hotels after returned travellers have been released, does Australia need to consider following in the footsteps of Singapore and Hong Kong and increase quarantine time from 14 to 21 days for travellers from some locations? There’s evidence to suggest that people infected with some of the new variants of the virus might be infectious for a longer period. But I don’t think we need to worry about cases like this, because a negative test is required before leaving quarantine. A bigger problem is that the incubation period can sometimes be longer than 14 days, but this seems uncommon. Asking people to wear a mask and monitor for symptoms for a week after leaving quarantine is probably sufficient. However, what we must do is take action to prevent airborne transmission in hotel quarantine. If we continue to overlook this mode of transmission, we’ll continue to see people getting infected while in quarantine. This is the reason we've been having outbreaks.