South Australia brings in new restrictions despite having ZERO local coronavirus cases as workers from Covid-struck gold mine are ordered into quarantine
- South Australia announced new restrictions due to fears of the Delta variant
- Restrictions on home visits and masks in confined public spaces are back
- As are deep cuts to numbers in public venues with the two per square metre rule
- Chief health office Dr Nicole Spurrier said the changes would be ‘short term’
South Australia introduced new Covid restrictions on Monday despite having no new locally-acquired cases, amid fears the Indian Delta variant is spreading.
Capped numbers on home gatherings, enforced mask wearing in confined public spaces, seating in restaurants and cafes, and a cap of 150 people in public venues are the key announcements expected to come into force in South Australia from Monday.
Licensed premises will be subject to a reintroduction of the one person per 2sqm rule.
Masks for high risk settings such as residential aged care, hospitals and personal care settings would also be reintroduced.
‘We also highly recommend them for public transport in SA,’ Premier Steven Marshall said.
‘We hope this will be for a week. We don’t want to put any restrictions in place but we feel the rapid spread of the Delta variant, we have to take preemptive action to keep our state strong.’
‘I apologise, it is very disruptive… but we are making these decisions for the safety of South Australians at this point in time,’ South Australia’s chief health officer Professor Nicola Spurrier said on ABC Radio Adelaide on Monday morning as she flagged new restrictions
We haven’t had a case of the Delta strain detected here yet in terms of community transmission,’ South Australian chief public health officer Nicola Spurrier told the press conference.
‘We’ve been very lucky.’
Professor Spurrier said she believed contact tracers had the situation with FIFO mine workers under control.
Earlier, she flagged the changes on ABC Radio in Adelaide on Monday morning.
‘There’s no intention to have this [the restrictions] for a long period of time, it will be for a short period of time as those other states work very hard to get on top of their outbreak,’ Professor Spurrier said.
‘Because we haven’t had any cases as yet here in South Australia… we want to remain like that because once you get cases with this particular strain it moves very very rapidly, even with excellent contact tracing.
‘It will not respond as well to things that we’ve done in the past.
‘I apologise, it is very disruptive, and it impacts family gatherings and family events, but we are making these decisions for the safety of South Australians at this point in time.’
South Australian Premier Steven Marshall closed the state’s borders to all states and territories except Tasmania and Victoria from 3pm last Sunday
Capped numbers on home gatherings, enforced mask wearing in confined public spaces, and restricted numbers in public venues will be reintroduced in South Australia
South Australia closed its borders to all states and territories except Tasmania and Victoria from 3pm last Sunday.
The state is on alert after 29 miners who were working at the Granites mine, 540km north-west of Alice Springs, returned to South Australia following possible close contact with a miner who tested positive to the virus last Friday.
About 900 fly-in fly-out mine workers returned to their homes around Australia.
SA Health said the miners were now self-isolating in South Australia, with 11 of them having tested negative for coronavirus on Monday morning.
Earlier on Monday, Queensland Premier Annastacia Palasczcuk said a female miner who returned from the Northern Territory mine tested positive to the highly-contagious Delta strain, prompting new restrictions in her state.