Australian Woman Forcibly Taken And Locked-Up After Being Exposed To COVID

After having been exposed to COVID, 26-year-old Hayley Hodgson from Australia was picked up by authorities last week and taken to a quarantine facility against her will.

“You feel like you’re in prison. You feel like you’ve done something wrong, it’s inhumane what they’re doing,” Hodgson said. “You are so small, they just overpower you.”

Hodgson said that she was ordered to quarantine at the Centres for National Resilience in Howard Springs, Darwin after one of her friends tested positive for COVID-19.

“Police officers blocked my driveway,” she said. “I walked out and I said, ‘what’s going on, are you guys testing me for COVID? What’s happening?’ They said, ‘no, you’re getting taken away. And you have no choice. You’re going to Howard Springs.’”

Hodgson said the officers informed her that she would not be allowed to “self-isolate” at home because they had received orders from “higher up” to take her to the facility.

The officers warned Hodgson that if she didn’t voluntarily go with them, they’d put her “in the back of the divvy van,” as if she were a common criminal.

Upon her arrival at the facility, Hodgson was told she would be quarantined there for two weeks. She was required to be tested three times during her confinement, all three tests were negative.

Hodgson said that during her lockdown she had very little contact with others and was mistreated by the staff.

“They don’t come and say anything, they don’t check-up, they don’t do anything. You get delivered your meals once a day. And you are just left,” she said.

Hodgson said that after she complained about the facility’s conditions, the staff offered to sedate her with valium to calm her down. The traumatized Hodgson said that she’d lost her job during her confinement and was never informed of any rights or put in contact with a lawyer even though the worst criminals are.

Howard Springs is one of two “mandatory supervised quarantine facilities” in the Northern Territory.

For the duration of quarantine, individuals are required to “stay in the person’s designated room, including any veranda space allocated to the room, unless permitted by an authorized by an officer.”