Vision showing hotel security guards asleep on job lay bare the depth of Victoria’s bungled program

Security guards working in Victoria’s quarantine hotels were told they didn’t need to wear personal protective equipment when interacting with guests.

An inquiry into the COVID-19 hotel quarantine program was on Monday shown the Department of Health and Human Services advice, dated June 8.

It stated there was no need for security guards to wear PPE when greeting guests in the lobby, taking them out for fresh air breaks or when making doorway visits if physical distancing could be maintained.

Infectious disease expert Professor Lindsay Grayson told the inquiry the advice was ‘inappropriate’.

‘It’s not just about the 1.5 metres (distance), PPE is needed anyway because there is a level of the unpredictability of that 1.5 metres suddenly becoming less in those scenarios,’ he said.

Prof Grayson said security guards should have been wearing eye protection, gloves, a gown and a mask when interacting with returned travellers or handling objects belonging to them.

The document was shown to the inquiry by Arthur Moses SC, who is representing Unified Security, one of three companies contracted to guard Victoria’s quarantine hotels.

Prof Grayson was also shown excerpts from a Commonwealth government training module, which was provided to security guards.

‘The majority of it is like a training module for the general public, rather than someone who is going to come into direct contact or be responsible for managing COVID patients,’ he said.

The module stated people did not need to wear masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19, which was true for the general public at the time but was ‘misleading for health workers or quarantine staff’.

‘I would consider it crucial if they were in likely contact with a potentially infectious patient,’ Prof Grayson said.

The training module was not updated until July 25.

The head of the Doherty Institute’s genomic sequencing unit, Professor Ben Howden, told the inquiry about ’99 per cent’ of Victoria’s second wave of coronavirus can be linked to returned travellers in hotel quarantine.

In late May, when the virus first broke out of hotel quarantine, 19 people in Victoria had died from COVID-19.

The state’s death toll now stands at 334, with almost 7500 cases active.

Senior counsel assisting the inquiry Tony Neal QC said the program was set up in 48 hours and was without ‘precise lines of responsibility, control, supervision and management’.

He identified the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Jobs, Precincts and Regions as well as Emergency Management Victoria as playing key roles in the program.

But ‘it was not clear who was in overall command’.

‘From the beginning, it seems there were multiple and potentially overlapping areas of responsibility between the departments,’ Mr Neal said.

He said the inquiry would also probe why private security guards were used over the Australian Defence Force and Victoria Police.

Government ministers will be called to give evidence. Premier Daniel Andrews said he was yet to be called to appear.

‘If I am called, I will be there,’ he told reporters on Monday.

An application by Opposition Leader Michael O’Brien to appear at the hearing, however, was rejected by the inquiry head, retired judge Jennifer Coate.

Mr O’Brien had submitted he had a ‘direct or special interest’ in the probe on behalf of coalition voters, and that his participation would ‘enable a different voice to be heard’.

In her ruling, dated August 12 but posted online on Monday, Justice Coate rejected Mr O’Brien’s arguments and defended the independence of her inquiry.

‘It will be conducted on behalf of all Victorians,’ she wrote.

International flights are being diverted away from Victoria while Corrections Victoria has taken over quarantine operations.

The inquiry continues on Tuesday.

 * March 16 – State of emergency declared in Victoria, returned travellers instructed to undergo 14-days of quarantine at home.

* March 27 – National cabinet decides returned travellers will be subject to mandatory 14-day quarantine ‘at designated facilities, for example, in a hotel’.

* May 27 – Outbreak at Rydges on Swanston first identified.

* May 31 – Victoria’s state of emergency extended for three weeks ahead of stage-three restrictions easing the next day. Four new COVID-19 cases, 74 active cases.

* June 6 – No new cases for the first time since March 5.

* June 9 – Students return to school.

* June 17 – Stamford Plaza outbreak identified; Victoria records 21 new COVID-19 cases – its highest increase in more than a month.

* June 21 – Further easing of restrictions.

* June 26 – Concerns grow about the program after it’s revealed 30 per cent of travellers are refusing tests. Confirmed COVID-19 cases continue to rise.

* June 29 – Hot spot suburbs in Melbourne’s north and north-west return to lockdown and all international flights into the city are put on hold for two weeks.

* July 2 – Inquiry into Victoria’s hotel quarantine program announced.

* July 4 – A full lockdown is announced at short notice for nine Melbourne public housing towers. Victoria records 108 new cases – its first day above 100 since late March.

* July 6 – The Victoria-NSW border shuts for the first time in a century.

* July 8 – Melbourne and Mitchell Shire placed into stage-three lockdown for six weeks.

* July 13 – Victoria’s Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton tells ABC Radio that it was conceivable all current cases in Victoria could be traced back to outbreaks stemming from the hotel quarantine system 

* July 20 – Hotel Quarantine Inquiry begins. Victoria records 275 new COVID-19 cases, the 15th consecutive day of triple-digit increases in new infections

– Australian Associated Press