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South Australia begins home quarantine trial this week

South Australia will begin a domestic trial of home quarantine ahead of a possible rollout of the program to support international returnees.

South Australia will begin a domestic trial of home quarantine ahead of a possible rollout of the program to support international returnees.

South Australian premier Steven Marshall says the trial will kick off this week by taking returning travellers from Sydney and Melbourne before the state considers accepting people from overseas.

“It’s something that we took to national cabinet a month or two ago, where we said look it’s going to be implausible, as we start to open up our international borders, to have everybody in the hotel quarantine situation,” he told ABC radio on Monday.

The trial will employ electronic monitoring and users will be identified by geolocation and face recognition technology through a mobile phone application.

“There are random parts of the day where you are contacted, you need to respond within 15 minutes and it will determine whether you are where you say you are,” Mr Marshall said.

Missed check-ins will be followed by phone calls, which if unanswered will prompt a police check.

Home Quarantine
So, basically, you’ll be under strict orders to Netflix ‘n’ chill and keep an eye on your phone.

Travellers must also complete a daily symptom check through the app, which is similar to checking in on a QR code.

According to authorities, data gathered will only be used for verification processes and won’t be stored.

“As we have more people in quarantine it’s going to be very, very resource-intensive to have police going around and checking so instead we are going to be using technology,” the premier added.

“It’s a trial which we should get the results of fairly quickly and I’ll be able to present that to the national cabinet in the subsequent weeks.”

The Home Quarantine SA trial is expected to include up to 50 people and if successful could be rolled out nationally.

Source: AAP