

On arrival, she was told that she would have to stay there for the full 14 days: Collected in the back of a rented van, she was then transported to Howard Springs. She was ordered to pack a bag and was told that she could be released once she tested negative. I don’t understand why I can’t just self-isolate at home, like a lot of other people are doing.” And they just said, “we’ve just been told from higher up where to take you. Or you can have a choice to get a ‘COVID cab’… I just said, “I don’t consent to this. You either come with us now, and we’ll put you in the back of the divvy van. “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. “So then the police officers blocked my driveway,” she says. This set in train an extraordinary series of events. They asked if she had done a Covid test, and in the moment she lied and said she had, when she in fact had not yet. She recounts how investigators came to her home shortly afterwards, having run the numberplate of her scooter to identify her as a ‘close contact’. It all began when a friend of hers tested positive. In an exclusive interview with Freddie Sayers, she recounted her experiences. She’s just returned from a 14-day detention at Howard Springs, the 2000-capacity Covid camp outside Darwin to which regional Covid cases are transported by the authorities. Hayley Hodgson, 26, moved to Darwin from Melbourne to escape the never-ending lockdowns - only to find herself locked up in a Covid Internment Camp without even having the virus.
