Aerobatic pilot Mark Sullivan took 15 days to be formally released from quarantine in the ACT, after initially being told he could leave his home after just 13 days.
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Mr Sullivan had flown to Temora on the morning of the day Canberra went into lockdown more than two weeks ago.
The pilot had flown his own plane to the regional NSW town, but when the ACT declared NSW a Covid-affected area, he needed an exemption to return to the territory.
After some confusion - the ACT took time to issue an exemption to return and NSW had directed Mr Sullivan to leave when he couldn't, and then stay after the state was locked down - Mr Sullivan flew directly from Temora to Canberra and entered quarantine.
"I was left in no doubt about what the requirements were when I got home," Mr Sullivan said.
"And there was also the requirement to proceed to get tested on that day zero, which was when I arrived back. All of that process was fine."
But after nine days, Mr Sullivan received a text message from ACT Health telling him it was day 13 of his quarantine.
He also realised his original quarantine documentation had directed him to quarantine for 10 days - 14 days since his arrival in NSW rather than departure.
Mr Sullivan waited on the phone for 10 hours on Saturday to speak with ACT Health, when he said he received verbal permission to be released from quarantine - just 13 days after he had arrived in Canberra.
"I finally got through to someone on the Saturday and he said, 'Yeah, yeah, verbally released. You'll get something through'," Mr Sullivan said.
"I thought, 'This is really weird'. Anyway, [I] stayed in quarantine," he said.
On a later phone call, Mr Sullivan said he was told by ACT Health there was no record for him in the quarantine system and a new one would need to be created.
Mr Sullivan received formal written notification he could leave quarantine on Monday.
Mr Sullivan said he thought Canberrans would generally comply with the intention of 14-day quarantine, even if they had received apparently erroneous information, but the government needed to make sure people were correctly informed.
"When we're left not feeling supported by the arrangements the government's put in place, that's when you run the risk that people will say, 'OK, if you're not going to do the right thing by me, then I'm not going to do the right thing by you'," he said.
"I don't think we've seen that in the ACT at the moment, but we've certainly seen it in Melbourne and Sydney."
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ACT Health struggled to process to the release notifications for a large batch of people who were released from quarantine two weeks after the lockdown began.
Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith has repeatedly apologised for the delays, which have seen some people kept in quarantine for 17 days.
Ms Stephen-Smith on Monday said health authorities were still working through what happened with quarantine release notifications to determine how many people had been affected.
"I recognise that it was very frustrating for people and for some people caused quite a lot of distress. Again, I apologise to all of those people," Ms Stephen-Smith said.
The Health Minister said she hoped the backlog of people waiting to be released would be cleared by the end of Monday, after people in quarantine connected to several school exposure sites were released in a group.
"It is a very Canberra thing, I think, that people would stay in quarantine up to day 16 or 17, awaiting that advice from ACT Health. It does speak to that very high level of compliance that we generally see across our community - again, I thank those people," she said.
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