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IPFS News Link • Australia

'You feel like you're in prison': Aussie recounts ordeal in COVID camp

• https://www.wnd.com, By Art Moore

A 26-year-old woman who had moved from Melbourne, Australia, to the country's Northern Territory to escape the continuing lockdowns tells of being removed from her home by police against her will and taken to a quarantine center.

And she didn't even have COVID-19.

"You feel like you're in prison," Hayley Hodgson told the British podcast UnHerd TV after her 14-day detention at Howard Springs, the 2,000-capacity COVID camp outside Darwin.

"You feel like you've done something wrong; it's inhumane what they're doing," she said. "You are so small, they just overpower you. And you're literally nothing. It's like, 'You do what we say, or you're in trouble, we'll lock you up for longer.' Yeah, they were even threatening me that if I was to do this again, 'we will extend your time in here.'"

On Tuesday, Northern Territory Police arrested three people who escaped from the Howard Springs facility. All three tested negative for COVID and were taken into police custody. Prior to their arrests, police blocked traffic as officers wearing face masks searched cars, causing a large traffic backup.

Hodgson said her ordeal began when investigators came to her home shortly after a friend had tested positive for COVID-19. Police had the license plate of her motor scooter to identify her as a "close contact."

She said that when she was asked if she had been tested for COVID, she lied and said she had, setting in motion a series of extraordinary events.

"So then the 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. You either come with us now, and we'll put you in the back of the divvy van.'"

Hodgson said she told the officers, "I don't consent to this. I don't understand why I can't just self-isolate at home, like a lot of other people are doing."


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