Jumping to put the lid on an outbreak of coronavirus in Adelaide, on Wednesday the South Australian Government initiated a second and hopefully short-term lockdown of the State.
Premier Steven Marshall described the proposed six-day measure as a “circuit breaker” that will allow authorities to conduct detailed contact tracing to bring the cluster under control.
“We are going hard and we are going early. Time is of the essence. We must act swiftly and decisively. We cannot wait to see how bad this becomes.”
Starting midnight Wednesday all hospitality businesses, including pubs, cafes and even all takeaway food, will be closed. Bottleshops are permitted to continue trading.
During the lockdown residents must stay at home, with one person only per household allowed to leave, once per day, in order to purchase groceries.
The suddenness of the decision has been criticised by industry, given less than half a day’s notice they were to shut again, bringing about significant wastage and losses and questions as to whether whack-a-mole shutdowns might continue for some time.
The cluster is understood to have begun through a cleaner at Adelaide’s Peppers Waymouth medi-hotel, who is thought to have picked it up from a surface and gone on to infect two security guards. Significantly, none of these three people were symptomatic.
Health Minister Stephen Wade stressed that no infection control protocols were breached at Peppers, and the worker had no direct contact with residents.
At least 34 cases have now been linked to the ‘Parafield’ cluster, while more than 11,000 South Australians have since been tested and found not positive.
The State’s Chief Public Health Officer, Professor Nicola Spurrier, attributed the rapid response to a desire to avoid “the experience in Victoria”, but experts such as Deakin University epidemiologist Catherine Bennett says there are key differences between the outbreaks.