Alice Springs resident Mark O'Reilly has welcomed the announcement of home quarantine in the Northern Territory, saying it'll hopefully reunite him with his sons in time for Christmas.
Chief Minister Michael Gunner announced the program on Monday.
It is due to come into effect on November 23, with home quarantine for all fully-vaccinated travellers to be scrapped from January next year.
It means fully-vaccinated domestic travellers from high-risk areas will be able to quarantine at home rather than in one of the Territory's dedicated quarantine facilities — as long as the address is in an area with a double-dose rate above 80 per cent.
Mr O'Reilly said the announcement was huge news for his family.
Trading $7,500 quarantine fees for COVID tests
Mr O'Reilly said his sons Tom, Matt and Jack McNamara had managed to come back to Alice Springs mid-year between lockdowns in Melbourne.
"But we've been wondering about how to get them back and what the potential cost of that might be for Christmas," he said.
That cost would have been a hefty $7,500 bill for the boys to quarantine at the Todd Facility in Alice Springs.
"That was one of the possibilities … we thought one option might be that they go to Sydney for a while and stay with family until they can easily get back to the Territory," Mr O'Reilly said.
"The other option was for all to meet somewhere south, but we've been making it up as we go along.
There are a number of rules for people undergoing home quarantine, including COVID tests on days one, three, five, seven, 12 and 17, and visitors will not be allowed.
Household members will also be subject to testing, but will be allowed to leave home as long as they remain in the 80 per cent vaccination area.
Financially great alternative
People undertaking home quarantine are also required to do so in an area with 4G mobile coverage, and use the Good to Go monitoring app.
The app was briefly used in Alice Springs earlier this year when a small number of people were allowed to quarantine at home, as the Todd Facility neared capacity.
Angela Harrison was one of those people, and says it was a great alternative to supervised quarantine.
"Financially it was great, and from every other reason it was great, we had the space to be safe at home," she said.
She said she had to check in with the Good to Go app several times a day, but that it wasn't complicated.
"They would just text you through the app … you just had to press a button … [and] it showed where you were when you did it," Ms Harrison said.
A home quarantine pilot program is scheduled to begin in Alice Springs next week.
