The summer camp-style quarantine Queensland wants to copy

More than 5000 people were under quarantine orders in Queensland on Thursday after a returned traveller infected five others at the Hotel Grand Chancellor in Brisbane.

Ms Palaszczuk will need federal government approval to reroute international flights to regional parts of the state and avoid lengthy bus trips from Brisbane, Cairns and the Gold Coast.

Under one scenario, planes would land at Rockhampton Airport before passengers were transported 116 kilometres south-east to the Homeground Villages camp in Calliope.

The regional airport is used by both the Australian Defence Force and Singaporean Armed Forces for joint training exercises and is capable of accepting large long-haul passenger flights including A380s and Boeing 787 Dreamliners.

Authorities are considering other sites close to Toowoomba, Townsville and Rockhampton, which all have airports with capacity to accept large aircraft.

The Northern Territory government has been sending international arrivals to a vacant mining camp about 25 kilometres south of Darwin for months.

Travellers staying at the site are allowed to go for a swim once a week and exercise outdoors twice each day with one previous guest describing it as a “more like a caravan park than a quarantine zone”.

Ms Palaszczuk said: “There’s no reason why we couldn’t do something similar here in Queensland or, if not, around the country”.

“For a start, some of these mining camps are four-star, they are of a very good quality, high standard,” she said.

“My understanding is some of them have – most of them – the ones we’re looking at, have balconies, so there’s a lot of fresh air for guests.

“Also too, there’s the capacity for all of the staff and the cleaners and everyone to also be based on those sites as well.”

Homeground Villages was contacted for comment.

Ms Palaszczuk is pushing the national cabinet to consider shifting quarantine sites out of capital cities to avoid a widespread outbreak.

Medical experts have advised against a similar plan in New South Wales, Health Minister Brad Hazzard said.

He said the southern public health officials had “very serious concerns” about moving returned travellers to regional areas given increased risk in moving possibly COVID-positive people on buses from airports.

“We do not believe there would be any advantages, in fact there would be distinct disadvantages, for us to be considering moving our public health hotels out of the Sydney regional area,” Mr Hazzard said.

“If we do get people who deteriorate, we want them to be able to be transferred to a major tertiary hospital as quickly as possible.

“There are obviously very strong views held in our public health team, that it makes sense to continue to have the hotel quarantine arrangements that we currently have.”