Anna Carter spent the night in jail after being arrested for violating her violating her quarantine order. Carter claims she was just looking for fresh towels.
Carter, 45, is under quarantine in Brisbane, Australia. She was ordered to self-isolate in the Ibis Brisbane Airport Hotel after arriving from New South Wales. Each Australian state or territory has the authority to set their own entry requirements and many have restricted non-essential movement to slow the spread of COVID-19.
But police found her outside the hotel. She told officers she had checked out of the hotel because the Ibis did not provide fresh towels each day. She was promptly arrested and hauled into court. Per 9News, A prosecutor told the court:
“She had no real reason to be absent from the hotel. We are all aware of just how urgent the [COVID-19] situation is and the importance of self-quarantine, especially when directed to by a public health official or police.”
In addition to the night in jail, she was fined A$2000. As it turns out, this wasn’t Carter’s first offense. The day before she was caught out of her hotel room at a local rail station. She blamed her outing on the need to purchase a band-aid for a blister on her foot. She was returned with a warning but police found her at an ATM five hours later. For that, she was fined A$1300.
Magistrate judge Stephen Courtney called the move selfish.
“Significant effort and expense have been gone to because of people like Ms Carter because the community can’t be confident they will do the right thing.”
CONCLUSION
I can sympathize with Carter’s wish for fresh towels and a band-aid, but it is not clear that the hotel denied either request. Rather, it seems more likely she just could not stand the quarantine.
Two thoughts:
14 days at an Airport Ibis and I would try to flee as well. Can we blame her?
Impressive that Australia can monitor and track these people so well. Or perhaps it’s just that knowing they were at an Airport Ibis made it a giveaway that some would try to run and they need to watch closely.
Honestly, those were my thoughts as well. Poor thing!
Huh? Australia is trying to contain and eliminate an epidemic and we’re worried about some wayward traveller’s accommodation and how boring it is? There is always an underlying risk you accept when you travel that you may get inconvenienced be it IRROPs or in this case pandemics. Why is it that everyone else is content staying at home to flatten the curve but this entitled person who got the virus from abroad feels that they aren’t entitled to stay holed up in a Ibis whilst the virus works through their system?
Been quite a few cases of entitled people wandering off or complaining rather loudly about the lack of fresh air. Admittedly it’s somewhat of a lottery but notably, even the ones holed up in 5 star hotels in Sydney with $90 a day for food complained. Sure, room service prices are a rip, but even then you’d still be eating pretty well. Top up with some out of pocket cash for booze and snacks and it’s a 2 week staycation binging a chunk of the netflix library or getting up to other activities in the privacy of a hotel room.
They just don’t get the severity of the situation.
Should have jailed her longer
Throw the stupid cow in prison until the pandemic ends ( plus an extra six months for good measure)
Damn right.
[redacted] yeah.
Agreed
Sadly, this illustrates why voluntary systems just don’t work for situations like this. This woman violated the law twice and still saw fit to come back for more.