Things the States need to learn from what's happening in Victoria, because this won't be the first time that these issues will occur over the next year /Thread.
1. The public aren't cretins, don't treat them as such. The difference between lockdowns (broad, area based, preventative infection control) and quarantine (specific locations under emergency) should be publicised as such. The panic saved by not using "quarantine" is illusory
2. "Quarantine" as a measure needs to be formally defined, with the protocols around it formally defined. It cannot be detention as a legal definition. It needs it's own definition with rights and obligations of the state and those under quarantine defined.
3. Those rights need to include medical and social welfare provision, translation and communications provision, and the provision of carer substitutes for carers forced into quarantine.
4. The States need to urgently develop a way to initiate the immediacy of a quarantine order that doesn't involve an army of police. That requires building a standing pool of qualified professionals in each state (and region) ready to deploy and initiate a quarantine order.
5. Partnerships need to be pre-organised with food and medical suppliers as part of any protocol, and publicised, not just to minimise disruption to basic life under a quarantine initiation, but to prevent uncertainty and anguish.
6. People under quarantine orders need to have their jobs statutorily protected at both State and Federal level for the duration of the quarantine. Income support needs to be similarly legislatively guaranteed during the quarantine period.
7. Emergency communications protocols need to be developed with all telecommunications providers as an obligation attached to their license, to allow the immediate mass dissemination of quarantine order information to those involved.
8. An easily accessible pathway to special exemption options needs to be at the heart of any quarantine process, because life is complex. Including an easily accessible and urgent appeal process that operates within a 24 hour window.
8. Any development of a formalised quarantine process needs to advertise widely the specific, intrinsic difference between quarantine and broader lockdowns. /Ends
