WA Premier defends five-day lockdown over single case

Nearly 500 close contacts and casual contacts of the man have since been identified and more than 42,000 people tested during a snap five-day lockdown of the Perth, Peel and South West regions.

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WA Chief Health Officer Andy Robertson said the lockdown would lift at 6pm Friday if no further cases were detected.

“If we look at any group of people [infected with the virus], we know that a small percentage will be super spreaders … probably around 10 to 20 per cent … and then there’ll be some in the middle who spread normally and then we get people who are very ineffective at spreading and hopefully that’s been the case here,” he said.

Asked if he felt the public would be on board if another single case with a known source sparked a second city-wide lockdown, Dr Robertson said the state government’s response to the virus was continuing to be refined, but every case would have its own individual circumstances.

“I think the public understand a short and relatively quick thing to stop this in its tracks before we get any spread is obviously far better than trying to deal with rolling outbreaks, lots of people in hospital and multiple deaths,” he said.

Curtin University infectious disease expert Archie Clements said he believed the lockdown was warranted, although it was not the reason WA had since recorded four days of zero cases.

“You can’t say the government’s response is the reason why we haven’t had cases, but the government’s response has bought us some time so that we can establish whether or not there’s been ongoing transmission and it seems that we have been lucky and there hasn’t,” he said.

WA Health Minister Roger Cook said he had no regrets over the lockdown, but refused to say whether it would be reinstated if a similar situation occurred again.

“I think our response was on the money,” he said. “We will obviously reflect on this experience and continue to learn from it.”

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Chamber of Commerce and Industry WA chief economist Aaron Morey said small businesses were calling for more certainty to know what scenarios could trigger another lockdown after many reported significant revenue losses over the week.

“Unsurprisingly, a lot of businesses say they want financial compensation … but the other thing that was just as equally requested was more certainty around what happens next time,” he said.

Dr Robertson said health authorities had scenario planning in place, but it has not been made public.

“We’ve done extensive scenario planning, so we have multiple plans that look at all kinds of outbreaks in all kinds of different settings – whether that be in prison, whether it be in a maritime situation … but we have to adapt to whatever the situation is, we have to adapt to the cases that occur,” he said.