Three COVID cases in WA, one in hospital
Victorians who head to Perth won't be forced into hotel quarantine after October 5. Photo: AAP
Western Australia has recorded three new cases of COVID-19 overnight, all returned Australians from overseas.
Premier Mark McGowan said the travellers, including two Western Australians and one person from NSW, had arrived from Britain, the Middle East and India.
One person has been admitted to hospital, while the other two cases remain in hotel quarantine.
Mr McGowan said it served as a reminder of how important the state’s hotel quarantine system was in protecting the state from an outbreak of COVID-19.
“That just shows that we still have the threat of COVID coming in from overseas and that’s why our hotel quarantine system is so important, that it’s managed properly and we avoid any spread of the virus into the general community,” Mr McGowan said.
“It’s very important our hotel quarantine system remain in place in a viable and sustainable way to ensure that we don’t have any cases from overseas come out or not be secured properly and therefore, go into the general community.”
The WA government and Commonwealth last week agreed on a compromised approach of increasing the number of international arrivals the state would accept each week.
WA currently accepts up to 525 international arrivals each week, but will take an extra 200 from September 27, and an extra 500 by October.
It will bring the total arrivals allowed into the state every week to 1025.
Tensions escalated between the WA government and the federal government last week, with Mr McGowan accusing the Commonwealth of planning to dump Australians on the state’s doorstep without taking more responsibility.
There are eight Perth CBD hotels managing quarantine guests, but Mr McGowan last week said one or two more would need to be commissioned to managed the increased arrivals.
It takes the state’s total confirmed cases of COVID-19 to 665.