# Capture — two hotels

- **Claim filed:** Hotel quarantine would contain returned travellers. The inquiry measured the leak.
- **Who:** Victorian hotel program (Andrews government); expert evidence to the Coate inquiry
- **URL:** https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08-18/victoria-covid-crisis-traced-back-to-seven-travellers-inquiry/12568408
- **Date:** 18 August 2020
- **Publisher:** ABC News
- **Title:** Victoria's coronavirus crisis traced back to seven travellers…
- **Captured:** 2026-08-14

## Verbatim (inquiry, ABC)

Dr Charles Alpren, Department of Health and Human Services:

> It is likely that a high proportion, approximately 99 per cent of current cases of COVID-19 in Victoria have arisen from Rydges or Stamford.

Two hotels. Seven returned travellers at the start of the chains. Rydges on Swanston; Stamford Plaza.

## Andrews, after the report

Guardian, 21 December 2020 — `guardian-hotel-2020-12-21.html`  
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/dec/21/daniel-andrews-apologises-for-botched-hotel-quarantine-program-in-victoria

Andrews apologised for failures, blamed lack of time. National cabinet, 27 March 2020: mandatory 14-day hotel quarantine, **stood up in 36 hours**. Coate: no one person owned the private-security decision. News.com.au (same report): 99 per cent of the second wave and **801 deaths** linked to those outbreaks.

Holiday Inn, Melbourne Airport, February 2021: another leak, then the “circuit-breaker” already filed.

## What this file does not do

It does not file “never quarantine anyone.” It files a 36-hour wall that the genome said did not hold.