As almost 1.7 million South Australians enjoyed the end of the three-day lockdown on Sunday, SA Health chief public health officer Professor Nicola Spurrier released new modelling to justify last week’s statewide lockdown.
On Sunday, Professor Spurrier unveiled the modelling she used last week to determine that the state must take drastic action to curb the spread of the virus following the Parafield cluster outbreak.It showed that the cluster could have led to a 50 per cent chance of the state experiencing 100 COVID-19 cases a day by mid-December.Professor Spurrier said the data also showed there was a “smaller but not negligible chance that we could have had an even higher caseload, upwards of 200 cases per day by mid-December”.“With Christmas not far away, this was not something I felt we should be allowing to happen in South Australia,” she said.
SA on Sunday recorded one new COVID-19 case, but Professor Spurrier stressed “this is nothing to be concerned about”.“This is just a slight distraction in that it is an overseas traveller so nothing to do with the Parafield cluster,” she said.“(It’s) a female in her 20s who is in quarantine in a medi-hotel.”There are now 37 active cases in SA.Figures also show more than 77,000 coronavirus tests have been carried out over the past week, including almost 17,000 on Saturday.There has been no community transmission detected.Professor Spurrier reiterated that she stood by the decision to go into lockdown.She also warned that the threat of this latest cluster had not passed, and urged people to continue social distancing and adhering to coronavirus restrictions.
“There’s still a chance that there could be somebody in our community who has contracted the disease,” she said.“If this has leaked out further … it’s going to be this week and the week after where we start to see other cases pop up in the community.”
AA new lockdown restrictions
On Saturday, authorities revealed a Spanish man accused of lying to COVID-19 contact tracers was at the centre of the major police investigation into the lockdown fiasco.Commissioner Grant Stevens confirmed police had “spoken to” the 36-year-old man on Saturday.“We have seized some electronic devices from that person and they’re being analysed as well, and I anticipate that Assistant Commissioner Peter Harvey will be in a position to give a more comprehensive briefing about the status of that investigation tomorrow (Monday),” he said.The man initially told contract tracers he caught the disease from a pizza box after briefly visiting the Woodville Pizza Bar, sparking fears of widespread community transmission.This information was part of the reason the state went into lockdown on Wednesday night.It was then discovered a few days later, when the man was reinterviewed, that he in fact worked at the pizza shop with an infectious staff member.That staff member also worked as a security guard and contracted COVID-19 at medi-hotel Peppers on Waymouth.Police are investigating if any possible criminal activity motivated the man to lie about his pizza delivery driver job.
SA premier Steven Marshall says catastrophic consequences have been avoided due to his government’s swift response to COVID-19 outbreak.
Premier Steven Marshall said the state had avoided a “catastrophic situation” by acting quickly in response to the cluster but also urged people to remain vigilant.“A massive thank you to the people of South Australia who continue to work together and their collective effort means that we have been able to stare down this very difficult situation,” he said.Asked if he could provide any assurances that authorities would pick up a lie before it led to drastic action such as a lockdown, Mr Marshall said “let’s find out exactly and precisely what happened”.“We haven’t had this situation before … and we are doing a thorough investigation into that false and misleading evidence that was provided … but let’s not jump the gun, let’s find out exactly and precisely what has happened and we’ll have a full report in a very short period of time,” he said.“We know that the people of South Australia deserve an explanation and we’re working as quickly as we can to get that explanation.”Meanwhile, a total of 103 fines were issued on Saturday to people who were “blatantly disregarding the (COVID-19) directions” while 182 warnings were handed out.This brings the total number of fines issued between Thursday and Sunday to 337 and the number of warnings during this period to 494.
Lockdown: The COVID-19 strain that shut down SA
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