The fear of bringing COVID-19 home to his family is always in the back of Rhian Blackwell's mind.
"No one goes into hotel quarantine planning to bring COVID home," he said.
Mr Blackwell has been on the front line, welcoming hundreds of Australians home at Darwin's Howard Springs hub and recently took a step back, now providing Canberra's returned travellers with anything from toys and highchairs to food and entertainment.
Whatever a returned traveller needs to maintain "normal activities" while confined to a hotel room for two weeks, Mr Blackwell provides.
"It's dropped up to the room and the team go back downstairs and call to say it is up there. So [we are] minimising and removing contact at every point possible," he said.
It's a step back from his front-line role as a nurse at Darwin's quarantine hub.
He recently returned from a three-month stint up north where he welcomed arrivals, swabbed passengers, and conducted daily checks and more swabs.
However, Mr Blackwell insists Darwin wasn't all that different from his work in the nation's capital.
"A lot of the systems are almost identical," he said.
"Everyone is getting phone calls, everyone is getting checked in on.
"The only difference is it was a lot hotter and sweatier in Darwin."
It was just over a year ago that Mr Blackwell was managing the health risk posed by the bushfires and choking smoke haze across Canberra.
"One day in the office I was the logistics officer for COVID, while also being health liaison for the bushfires."
But, being part of a historic response to the pandemic is all part of a day's work for Mr Blackwell.
"It's good to be part of something bigger," he said, but insisted this was what his team was "built to do".
On Thursday, Mr Blackwell will receive a second dose of the Pfizer vaccine, making him among the first fully vaccinated against COVID-19 in Australia.
He's glad for another line of defence against the ever-present virus in his workplace but says "it's not the be all and end all".
"It's definitely another another part of the puzzle," he said.
Read more:
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- Hotel quarantine workers told to avoid large crowds as they manage four COVID-19 cases
- ACT government not tracking COVID-19 jabs for hotel quarantine workers
Returned travellers left the Pacific Suites hotel on Tuesday, but five people with the virus must stay on.
Mr Blackwell said the concern of bringing the virus home was always in the back of his mind.
"Which is why nothing is done in a rush," he said.
He said strict rules dictated who was allowed in certain parts of the hotel, and out again.
"There's regular training for PPE processes ... to make sure everyone has muscle memory so there is minimal chance of slip-ups.
"There's a buddy system in place so everyone is doubling checking each other."
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