I don't know what to make of this content describing "indefinite quarantine" in NZ.
When I watched a video on someone who had trained as a contact tracer in CA, I recall she said there was no limit on quarantine. They could continuously renew your supposed need for quarantine as long as they liked. It's up to them to say whether you are healthy and all they have to do is say you are not (who controls the test results? who controls the reporting?)
So I came across the content below and I think it does point to indefinite quarantine, but then I wonder if, based on the way it's written, the person being quoted about thousands of people quarantined for years, whether they are actually referring to the act of quarantining SOME people short-term rather than quarantining the SAME people long-term or indefinitely?
I do note the way they say who escaped quarantine was "out of isolation for an hour." The way it is phrased it doesn't really sound like a person, it sounds like an animal escaped it's cage. "Escapee" sounds like a prisoner escaped its cell. :/
Okay, I found the cited article regarding NZ "indefinite quarantine".
The article doesn't clarify well how long any one person stays and I think that is intentional throughout the article.
Nice how they malign people "escaping" quarantine as if they are mentally ill or substance addicts because that would be the only reason a person wouldn't want to be imprisoned and "managed". Oh and to stop people from escaping they think maybe they should just cure, say, the nicotine addiction? And why couldn't these people obtain cigarettes while in quarantine? Not an approved purchase?
"Prof Baker says we need to look at why these people feel the need to escape from the isolation facilities.
"Sometimes, it's people have problems with all the stress. They may have psychiatric illness. They may have a substance addiction - nicotine, alcohol or something else. And so we need to identify ways of avoiding that problem," he tells Shepherd."
They also think that to prevent foreign visitors from "absconding" from quarantine, they need to profile travelers. I put a portion in bold text that reminded me of FVEYE (five eyes intel cooperation between US, UK, NZ, AU etc.)
"On Thursday, ACT leader David Seymour said the Government needs to start profiling travellers based on their risk of absconding - especially looking at those with criminal records.
"The vast majority of people entering New Zealand will pose absolutely no risk of absconding from managed isolation and quarantine facilities," he said in a statement.
"But a tiny minority will be a risk. The Government should be using the information at its disposal to figure out who those travellers are most likely to be and place them under tighter security."
New Zealand to quarantine people 'for months, maybe years' as COVID-19 rages around world - epidemiologist Michael Baker
Sounds like bad grammar on the part of the author.
Quarantine is usually for 14 days, and I think the author meant that the quarantining process would go on for a long time, not that the same person would be held for months to years.