Once on board we were told by announcement on the plane that a new law had taken affect meaning that we were required to quarantine for 2 weeks in hotels, and that the flight crew had no further information. But the downside far outweighs the upside.Īs mentioned, I knew about the forced quarantine policy the night before my flight. For a traveller going through, it has never been more streamlined. Most shops at the Los Angeles Airport are closed. The poor hospitality workers and small business owners are in big trouble. The benefit to them (if they can keep their jobs) is that they have nowhere to spend their money so they have the ability to potentially use this time to save. Layer that over their debt obligations such as rent, credit cards and so on and all of a sudden there’s a lot of worried people who are out of a job overnight.Īnyone that has an office job is working from home. With nowhere to go out and spend money, these people were the initial casualties. The economy in New York is decimated.īecause of the population density of New York, there are a lot of people in service industries like retail, cafes, hospitality and travel. So as far as me knowing the situation was bad, sure, I did.īut did it feel bad? No way. While everyone is saying New York is the epicentre of the COVID-19 pandemic, you wouldn’t know it because hardly anyone has left their house in the past few weeks and no venues other than food and essential services have been open. New York has been shut down for the past three weeks.Īt the time that I left there was nothing open except essential services and the streets were totally empty. I was one of the first flights to land the morning after the laws came into effect.

There’s no way I could have taken an earlier flight than the one I booked because of the time difference. I already had a flight booked home to Sydney from Los Angeles when I saw the Scott Morrison press conference announcing the 14-day forced quarantine at hotels for international arrivals. I have been overseas working in New York where I live in an apartment. Sydney-born Greek Australian business man speaks exclusively to Greek City Times about his oppressing experience from the inside of a forced quarantine hotel.

Australia's new quarantine laws for international travellers arriving into the country came into effect on Sunday, with anyone arriving now forced to stay in a state-funded hotel room for 14 days.

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