07/07/2020 - 13:00
- Clarín.com
- World
Australia's success in containing the coronavirus has been largely successful. It has, however, one exception: Melbourne , a city of 5 million inhabitants, the second most populous in the country. As Australia transitions back to normal, the state capital of Victoria will begin a strict quarantine at midnight on Wednesday, after 191 new cases were recorded in the past few days and outbreaks of the virus were detected in at least 40 suburbs. from the city.
Isolation measures, which will last six weeks s have caused a wave of recriminations and frustration among the people of Melbourne. The anger is due to the fact that the origin of the problem was control failures in two hotels that housed people who were returning from abroad and had to remain in quarantine for 15 days. The genetic sequencing that was done on the various virus strains currently circulating revealed that they come from those Melbourne hotels.
The central criticism is that, unlike Sydney, the Victorian government used security guards from private companies , and not the police or the Army, to guard these isolation centers.
Australian media have reported numerous irregularities in the situation. There are companies that charged for agents that later did not send to the place. There are allegations that the guards had sex with some of the quarantined guests , and that they were even allowed to go to rooms where family or friends were to play cards.
A queue of people in a Melbourne trade waits to enter before the strict quarantine measures go into effect. / REUTER
Criticism has taken its toll on officials. They decided to open an investigation into the reported irregularities. To do this, they appointed a retired judge to conduct it. The magistrate is expected to present his findings in September. In turn, it ordered that the control in the centers that house those who are infected be carried out by the prison staff , and the departure and arrival of international flights to Melbourne airport was suspended.
The government also sought to put Qantas airline flight attendant staff to collaborate with prison guards. There were protests from the unions, who considered that they had not had enough training to carry out that task.
The officials, however, decided to advance the same, given that they considered that there were "few items that took security protocols so seriously."
For epidemiologist Catherine Bennett of Deakin University in Melbourne, the current situation is largely due to the fact that it was security guards who carried the virus to the suburban communities where they lived .
What is Coronavirus? How is it spread and what are its symptoms?
Watch the special"Negligence also had an element of bad luck. There were numerous people infected with coronaviruses that began to circulate in their communities just as the restrictions began to relax ," he told The Associated Press .
"Sometimes it takes only one infected person within a community of people for a massive spread to take place. It is a situation that has already been seen in other parts of the country," he added.
Source: AP
