The sprawling, fenced camp known as the Northern Territory Center for National Resilience once housed 3,500 construction workers in squat prefab units that Australians call “dongas.” They have gray linoleum floors and walls, harsh fluorescent lighting, battered venetian blinds and fire-engine-red furniture. The feeling is part trailer camp, part hospital, part prison.
Teams wearing personal *protective gear and wheeling carts deliver food once a day about 5 p.m. and leave it on the baking veranda step. (Although they might forget you.)
Nurses rap sharply on the door for random early-morning temperature checks or coronavirus tests. Police and soldiers patrol, occasionally shouting at people to put on masks. And there is a 39-page booklet of rules and procedures. All this, for the price of a good hotel room.
The rules are detailed: no *alcohol, no care parcels, no restaurant deliveries, no balls, no sunbathing, no metal silverware, no scissors or sharp implements, no cooking in the kettle, no putting food waste into the hand basin (who does that, anyway?), no electrical appliances, no stepping off your balcony *except for garbage disposal and three allotted weekly laundry spots, no skateboards or inline skates, no *swimming or playing in the drains when it rains, no noise *after 9.30 p.m.
Bags are searched and people can be fined if they don’t wear masks outside. Supermarket *orders are allowed.