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1. [39]National

[40]

Opinion

Her Majesty’s quarantine: My life in coronavirus isolation

Luke Malpass05:00, Jun 25 2020
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RNZ
The rules for managed isolation and quarantine may be tightened even
further as the government works to restore public confidence in the
border regime.

OPINION: It was 6am last Sunday morning – our exit from Government-run
isolation. I was in the shower, with our baby daughter on the floor
(she likes the steam and white noise), when my wife appeared with a
temperature gun, took both of our temperatures and reported it back to
nursing staff.

Our forms were duly signed and we were free to get our Ministry of
Health letter and leave. We had done our 14 days, had tested negative,
but were not eyeballed by staff. While this was kind given the hour, it
was clearly a lax bit of procedure after an otherwise
professionally-run and mostly well-administered stay as a guest in Her
Majesty’s quarantine.
The whiteboard at Rydges hotel provided daily updates for those in
isolation.
Luke Malpass/supplied
The whiteboard at Rydges hotel provided daily updates for those in
isolation.

Our route to quarantine started about three weeks earlier. Returning to
New Zealand after a stint in Australia to have our second child was not
going to be easy. We had a plan to get an exemption: get someone to
drop our car in Auckland, and then drive through the night to
Wellington to self-isolate at home. With a two-year-old and
seven-week-old baby we had letters of support from our doctors and
thought we were in with a good shot.

About a week before we were due to arrive back in Auckland on June 6,
the ministry replied with a polite but firm no:

“Exemptions are only considered for strict medical/compassionate
reasons, therefore we have to decline. We understand your reasoning for
the request; however, our facilities have medical staff on site and are
very experienced in looking after families with small children.”

Although there were avenues to appeal, it looked final and the criteria
were pretty strict. We accepted the decision, although I was very
sceptical about the claim that the ministry was “very experienced in
looking after families with small children”, given that the quarantine
regime had barely been running for two months.

I was both right and wrong. Staff on the ground were great and very
supportive, but the idea that there was anything special set up for
dealing with young children was definitely untrue – in our case at
least.

When we arrived in Auckland, departures from the plane were staggered.
We had our temperatures checked and were run through the familiar list
of Covid symptoms. An orange sticker was placed on our arrivals card
stating that we were headed to a managed isolation facility.

So with trolleys loaded up with kids, bags and car seats and other
detritus we followed the signs and ended up on a bus which the driver
told us was bound for the Rydges Hotel in Federal St.

On arrival at the Rydges, the place was packed as people lined up while
awkwardly socially distanced. About 100 people checked in that night,
according to hotel staff I subsequently spoke to. A nurse found us,
checked we were all right, and got us to the front of the line, where
the hotel sorted us out.

The hotel staff at the Rydges were terrific. We got a large room with a
kitchen, a washing machine and an adjoining bedroom. We were told to
ask if we needed anything. This was going to be manageable.

When we were woken by our little one about 4.30 the following morning,
we began to plan what we could do to get ourselves through the time,
and figure out how it all worked.
Daily health checks were undertaken at the hotel.

Luke Malpass/Supplied

Daily health checks were undertaken at the hotel.

There were essentially five organisations involved in the running of
isolation at the Rydges. A couple of Ministry of Health officials (who
were almost all from the UK or Ireland and looked to be in their
twenties) and two or three Civil Aviation Authority officials (the
people who check you and your bags for security at the airport) ran the
practical movement of people. Hotel staff handled any queries relating
to rooms, food and so on. There were nursing staff who took our
temperatures and did a rudimentary health check each day. There were
always at least two Defence Force personnel – always professional and
good-natured - on site overseeing that all the bits were running
together smoothly.

The Rydges has three areas you could get outdoors: a fenced-off front
area where taxis usually arrive, the terrace bar up on the roof where
you could book in a 40-minute excursion, or a ramp up the side of the
hotel that you could book for a jog. When you went outside, the AVSEC
guards would take your name and room number.

Luke Malpass and wife Lexi on the Auckland waterfront. Up to one-hour
walks were allowed.

Lexi Prabhakar/Supplied

Luke Malpass and wife Lexi on the Auckland waterfront. Up to one-hour
walks were allowed.

To our dismay when we first arrived we discovered that – ironically –
with the move to alert level one there were too many people on the
streets and too few staff to supervise walks. After a few days they
started using a bus which took us down to a strip of foreshore on
Queens Wharf for a 40-minute to one-hour walk. These walks – which were
almost always booked up early – were a welcome reprieve from the
confines of our hotel room, but it was challenging: a fall into the sea
on one side with a marauding two-year old kept me on my toes.

At the perimeter of the hotel forecourt were two sets of fences
separating the inmates from the general public by about two metres.
Although ministry guidelines stated that there was to be no contact
with the public, friends and family would come and say hello and a
blind eye was turned provided the talk wasn't for too long or too
frequently. You could also order in food and deliveries. Some friends
dropped off toys, books and baby gear for our little ones and sometimes
would stop by for a chat.

The one thing all the staff from the various agencies had in common was
the fact that they knew that it was a tough situation for everyone
involved and saw their job as making it as stress-free as it could be.

Daughter Maggie has some fun blowing bubbles, a welcome break from life
in a hotel room.

Lexi Prabhakar/supplied

Daughter Maggie has some fun blowing bubbles, a welcome break from life
in a hotel room.

There were of course classic bits of bureaucratic overreach. We took
our daughter out to blow bubbles in the forecourt most days. One day a
new, young MOH official came running out, terrified that she was
blowing bubbles out into Auckland. Covid bubbles! Right next to an area
where smokers were happily chuffing away, blowing nicotine-filled
particles into the air. A conversation with another official quickly
set this right, but it was pretty ridiculous.

Subsequently, the manager of the hotel very kindly brought in his own
daughter’s special bubble machine for us to use outside. These small
acts of kindness and consideration really helped make the stay easier.

The food was also pretty good: dropped off in paper bags outside our
room, five times a day, along with a crossword and exercises. Rubbish
was then put back outside the door for collection. Despite rumours of
people flouting social distancing, there was little evidence where we
were staying.

To get through the day we had a mixture of game playing, water crayons
in the shower (three times a day for our two-year-old – a safe, easily
supervised area), The Best of The Wiggles and Finding Nemo and
Paddington. There was too much TV, but it was hard to avoid.

Then there was the inevitable scuttlebutt and gossip around the traps.
Booze could only be bought from the hotel: limited to a bottle of wine
per person per day or four beers. All bags and food orders were checked
for liquor. Was there really an orgy a few days before we arrived,
which was the reason that consumption of alcohol had been limited on
premises?

A couple of police told me that a bunch of young guys at the Pullman
had stockpiled beers and had a big party their last couple of nights of
isolation. Of the several police I spoke to, they said their biggest
job was policing the Old Testament intimacy, people being in each
other's rooms and drugs being dropped off. Mostly a caution would
suffice, but occasionally more would be required. People are people and
isolating yourself from your fellow humans doesn't come naturally to
most.

One of the interesting things was the number of people I met who had
come from all around the world to get home. Some said they had been
stuck in various quarantines around the world trying to get home for
the past two months, some were returning from the Middle East and quite
a number from London, sick of the restrictions, or with expiring visas
back from their OE.

When the two women from the UK tested positive for Covid-19 we were on
day 11, and on the morning of day 12 all four of us were tested for the
virus (and came back negative). At the afternoon health check we told
nursing staff, as we had for the previous week, that our daughter had a
cough, but was otherwise bubbly and healthy. Suddenly, it was a big
deal. We were put in isolation in our room pending a review by a
doctor.

In the event it was decided to keep us in our rooms ahead of the result
of the test rather than shift us to a quarantine facility. After about
28 hours in our room, our negative results came through.

One nurse apologised to us and simply said that those higher up weren’t
really concerned about clinical opinions, but public perception.
Security and routines in the hotel - which were already rigorous and
well-organised – tightened up noticeably after the positive cases,
despite the fact that the two women should have been tested and were
let out on compassionate grounds.

Overall, the experience was very hard, but fascinating. Staff on the
ground were doing their best with hastily assembled and often
incomplete guidelines. But as has emerged over the past week, most of
the problems with the quarantine regime appear to have emanated out of
Wellington.

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