In December 2019, the Manigurr-ma Village on the outskirts of Darwin was a dormant workers' camp that the Northern Territory government did not know what to do with.
Only weeks later, the vacant village would find its calling — and, ultimately, end up as Australia's premier quarantine facility during a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic.
Today, after quarantining more than 64,000 people in the past two years, the facility governments called the "Centre For National Resilience" is closing, with the Northern Territory government saying "dedicated isolation and quarantine facilities are no longer required".
Australia's safe harbour
It was February 2020 when Australia faced its first key test in pandemic infection management on home soil, with evacuees from the COVID-19 epicentre of Wuhan flying into the then-makeshift Howard Springs facility.
The facility would go on to quarantine almost 22,000 repatriated Australians who were stranded abroad when international borders shut, as well as overseas fruit pickers, international students and Aussie athletes returning home from the Tokyo Olympics.
The facility — and the expert medical team overseeing it — were key to buying the nation time to prepare its COVID-19 health response, according to Deakin University Chair in Epidemiology Catherine Bennett.
"Australia is one of the few countries in the world that really tried to manage its international border, to the extreme that we did in closing it for all but very essential travel," Professor Bennett said.
"It proved a challenge, particularly as we moved through the succession of variants that became increasingly transmissible.
"And it was Howard Springs that really stood the test of time."
Once the facility was set up, Professor Bennett said it offered the most effective way of getting people into the country safely and at scale.
"It was our national port, particularly when we were bringing people back on repatriation flights," she said.
"It was important to have a facility [that] could accommodate the number of people and a facility that could be put in operation safely very early on."
From where you'd rather quarantine
With fresh air and the freedom to roam built into the Howard Springs experience, it quickly gained a reputation as Australians' preferred place to spend two weeks in isolation.
Unlike hotel quarantine, residents at the Howard Springs facility were allowed to hang out on their balconies, catch a Darwin sunset and even exercise.
Professor Bennett said the conditions at Howard Springs, and its success, taught the nation how quarantine should be done.
"Perhaps its greatest influence was in helping us understand what a safe quarantine environment could look like," she said.
"And the fact that we had a design in Howard Springs with separate cabins and no shared corridors, that actually made it a bit of a model for other states to emulate down the track."
Facility's post-pandemic life up in air
There is now uncertainty about what's next for Howard Springs, with the Northern Territory government — which owns the facility after being gifted it by gas company Inpex in 2012 — yet to specify how it will be used.
However, the Commonwealth has committed $5 million over the next year to keep Howard Springs on stand-by as a quarantine facility, and the Northern Territory government said it would also provide funding as required.
Despite sub-variants of Omicron continuing to pose a serious threat across Australia, Professor Bennett said having the facility on stand-by might be enough.
"But you have to know that you can rely on it at short notice if the situation should change, and that we've got a plan then for how you could ready that facility and get it operational at the time it takes planes to come into the country," she said.
In 2019, just months before COVID-19 hit, the NT government opened up the future use of the Manigurr-ma Village to public consultation, saying a range of options, including tourism, commercial opportunities and housing, were on the table.
Dozens of intrigued Territorians toured the facility, with one saying: "I'd like to see it be used as something that's going to benefit the Northern Territory and, hopefully, the NT government does the right thing."
Nearly three years later, it might not only be Territorians looking at how the once little-known camp could be of benefit in a time of need.
But, for now, Professor Bennett said Australians could be grateful for its service.
"Keeping our borders closed … was the thing that actually got us to a point where we could have enough people in the population vaccinated to more safely give in to the virus," she said.
"Buying that time was absolutely critical, and Howard Springs played a key role in that."
