Stood down: Quarantine manager Matiu Bush
A senior manager in Victoria s hotel quarantine program who was stood down for breaching protocols previously worked on designing a good death .
Matiu Bush - who prefers to be referred to as they or them instead of he or him - was stood down on Wednesday after it emerged they refused a Covid-19 test, and failed to hand stantise or properly use face masks.
Bush began working for Victoria s hotel quarantine program in June 2020 and became the General Manager of Infection Prevention and Control in October, following the state s horrific second wave which killed 801 people.
Matiu Bush reportedly refused to have the test - which is required of all quarantine workers every day - when leaving the Intercontinental Hotel at 12.05pm on April 20.
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The Victorian government has sought to push the quarantine quandary onto Scott Morrison, announcing plans for a 500-bed, purpose-built facility north of Melbourne and calling on the federal government to pick up the $200 million-plus bill.
Acting Premier James Merlino said $15 million would be spent to immediately begin the design, but the final go-ahead would wait until September and was dependent on agreement with the Prime Minister.
The proposed cabin-style outdoor accommodation located more than 40 kilometres north of Melbourneâs CBD at Donnybrook Road, Mickleham would be on federal government land, next door to an existing pet quarantine facility.
The memories of that dire period last year, the restrictions on any form of normal life, the isolation within homes, the search for any of the four reasons to be outside, our world shrinking to a five- kilometre radius, income evaporating .
It would, said the Premier, be short and sharp. Five tough days. But the truth is, there could be no guarantees.
This time, it is the British variant that has escaped Victoria’s hotel quarantine system, we are told; so infectious and so rapid in its spread that by the time a case is confirmed, the virus has vaulted ahead, infecting unknown numbers of others.