World News – AU – Experts ‘baffled’ Victoria’s hotel quarantine program not on Health Care Infection Task Force

Experts are “thrilled” to learn that the hotel’s quarantine program from Victoria’s central infection control task force for frontline health workers and policies have not been applied to the contested system

The Australian Medical Association (AMA) has also stated that Victoria is “untrustworthy” in managing hotel quarantine until it is fully restructured after Victoria underwent a third lockdown this week due to a cluster at the Holiday Inn hotel’s quarantine site Melbourne Airport was forced

Last year, the Task Force on the Prevention and Welfare of Healthcare Workers was set up to address the frontline issue of COVID-19 workers

Up to 80 percent of the thousands of healthcare workers who caught COVID-19 in Victoria last year were infected at work

Brett Sutton, Chief Health Officer, is a member of the Task Force and is led by Andrew Wilson, Chief Medical Officer of Safer Care Victoria

Despite the frontline work of the Task Force to Reduce Infection and the ongoing review of practices, the information has not been shared or applied to COVID-19 Quarantine Victoria (CQV), task force members told the ABC

The problem was raised at a task force meeting this week The members only now agreed that the information would be passed on

From masks, gatherings, and drills to hospitals, school, and work, here’s what ends in Victoria’s five-day ban

The Assistant Secretary of the Victorian Allied Health Professionals Association (VAHPA), Andrew Hewat, also sits on the Task Force

He said it was evident that key lessons from the task force were not being applied to hotel quarantine

“We’re really frustrated and upset that there is so much going on on the task force identifying bugs, but it doesn’t apply to hotel quarantine, which you think is most important,” said Hewat

“I think information is being exchanged all the time, but they don’t rely on what is going on in hospitals,” said Andrews

“CQV has its own team – you don’t want to use someone else’s team from a different environment, and I think we could all agree that hospitals are different from hotels in many ways. They are also similar in some ways “

In his daily press conference, Andrews said it was his expectation that all relevant materials would be shared within a government department

At another press conference, Federal Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly said he still had full confidence in the Victorian quarantine system

“They ran a very good quarantine system, as all other states and territories actually do in their own way,” he said

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CQV Victoria, cqv