A charity worker and nine others are locked in hotel quarantine for 14 days despite dashing from Sydney to Melbourne before Victoria shut its border on January 1. Ronnie Richards cut short his family holiday in Sydney’s eastern suburbs and scrambled to catch a Virgin flight to Melbourne, where he works. Upon landing at Melbourne Airport at 10am on January 1 — 14 hours before the border closure took effect — Mr Richards and other passengers were ordered not to leave the arrival lounge for six hours before they were forced into hotel quarantine. “They’ve messed up, not me, yet I’m holed up in an airless hotel room,” he said from his room at the Holiday Inn. Travellers reported being stuck for up to seven hours on roads waiting to cross checkpoints as Victoria tried to protect itself from the virus. Victorian Department of Health and Human Services officials said they were “actively” reviewing the circumstances of people returning from NSW to assess if there were more appropriate places for them to quarantine.
