To anyone who is questioning why empty hotel rooms are not used to house FW under quarantine: in short, almost the entire hotel team is at home now. To bring them back and have them trained to handle potentially infected people is a cost.

It’s a high one if not done properly too, as it means infections of the hotel team as well. This is why the G only contracted 7500 rooms for the SHN for imported cases instead of the whole industry.

The training and costs of handling such cases in and of itself is not low, and after 14 days a deep thorough clean with disinfection needs to be carried out. Right now the size of the FW quarantine clusters is beyond the hotel team that can be called back for training.

And you also have the whole security thing. How do you manage the people? It’s not easy being on the frontline. My first hotel is still operating only because they are part of that 7500 inventory. Now try calling back people you placed on partial lockdown to come back to work.

Good on you if you are intrinsically selfless and will be willing to expose yourself to the risk to help. Not all of us are. The decision on whether the costs are worth it lies in the hotel management company. Not the G at this time since things are still somewhat in control.

Of course, if you understand the inner workings of the govt and also the hospitality industry, please feel free to correct me. If putting even more people at risk of exposure to the virus is worth it (on top of related monetary costs), then please correct me.