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- South Australian officials said on Friday that a “lie” led to the state’s most severe coronavirus lockdown yet.
- In a shocking announcement on Friday, South Australian State Prime Minister Steven Marshall said the strict six-day lockdown would be lifted earlier than expected.
- Marshall reiterated that it was still a “dangerous” group with 25 infections and about 4,500 close contacts in quarantine.
South Australian officials said on Friday that a “lie” led to the most severe coronavirus lockdown yet in the state, as contact trackers were initially led to believe that a man was infected with a highly contagious virus with a period much shorter incubation.
In a shocking announcement on Friday, South Australian State Prime Minister Steven Marshall said the strict six-day lockdown would be lifted earlier than expected at midnight on Saturday as the virus was not as contagious as it was. I thought initially.
Marshall reiterated that it was still a “dangerous” group with 25 infections and about 4,500 close contacts in quarantine.
How did the infections start in South Australia?
A security guard at a quarantine hotel, who also worked part-time at a pizzeria, in the Adelaide state capital, the Woodville Pizza Bar, was infected via a traveler who returned from the UK.
A second worker, not identified by authorities by name, at another quarantine hotel in the city was also infected. Authorities said the man told contact trackers that he had only bought a pizza at the same bar, when in fact they later discovered he worked multiple shifts there.
Authorities worked on the premise that the man had contracted the virus from a very short exposure while shopping for pizza, leading them to believe that he must have been exposed to a highly contagious strain.
What are the implications?
“If this person had been honest with the contact tracing teams, we would not have entered a six-day lockdown,” Marshall told a news conference in Adelaide on Friday.
A second consequence is that contact trackers now need to find and isolate an entirely new group of people who have had contact with the man.
“It is absolutely necessary that we act quickly over the next 24 to 36 hours to identify and locate these people so that we know that we have eliminated the risk of this particular strain spreading further into the community,” added Marshall.
How did the authorities find out?
The contact tracing team sat down and interviewed the worker. Another team reviewed the information obtained in the interview, but was not satisfied with “the feeling they had of this,” said South Australian Police Commissioner Grant Stevens at the conference.
The review team re-interviewed the man, who eventually revealed that he worked multiple shifts at the pizzeria.
Prime Minister Marshall said it was not yet clear what the man’s motivation was.
Are there penalties for deceptive contact trackers?
No, although the current law is likely to be revised.
“There is simply no mechanism for us to take additional action,” Marshall said.
Is South Australia out of the woods yet?
No. Authorities are still trying to locate thousands of people who may have had a “dangerous contact” at Woodville Pizza Bar.
The state’s director of public health, Nicola Spurrier, also warned that the number of cases in South Australia would rise in the coming days, although those people are already isolated and not a threat to the wider community.
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