The local government on Christmas Island has moved to try to reassure concerned residents they will be safe from infection after more than 200 Australians brought home from the coronavirus centre of Wuhan were quarantined on the island.
About 240 Australian citizens and permanent residents were flown out of Wuhan on an evacuation flight on Monday, including 84 children under 16 and five infants under two.
They were first brought to the Australian mainland but then flown on smaller planes to Christmas Island, where they are expected to spend two weeks at a repurposed immigration detention facility.
Island administrator Natasha Griggs told Christmas Island residents via a Facebook post that the evacuees would be kept completely separate from the community while they were quarantined.
“Those quarantined will not be moving around the island or accessing any services including health services used by Christmas Island residents or visitors,” she wrote in the public post.
Australian Medical Association president Tony Bartone last week called on the Commonwealth to find a more “humane” solution for repatriating Australians and suggested quarantine could be safely achieved on the mainland.
Christmas Island lies more than 1,500 kilometres from the Australian mainland and is geographically much closer to the Indonesian islands of Java and Sumatra.
2020 ABC