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Schools, restaurants and factories were ordered to close at midnight while stay-at-home orders were issued for residents across the state.
FILE: Weddings and funerals will be banned and the wearing of masks in public will become mandatory in South Australia, which had not seen a significant outbreak since April. Image: AFP
Adelaide – The state of South Australia announced on Wednesday a six-day “circuit breaker” lockout for its nearly two million residents to contain a sudden cluster of coronaviruses in its capital city that ended a streak of months without infections.
Schools, restaurants and factories were ordered to close at midnight while stay-at-home orders were issued for residents across the state.
It came about when two new cases were linked to a group that emerged from an Adelaide hotel used to quarantine foreign travelers, leading the outbreak to 22 cases.
Weddings and funerals will be banned and the wearing of masks in public will become mandatory in the state, which had not seen a significant outbreak since April.
“We’re going hard and we’re going early,” said State Prime Minister Steven Marshall. “Time is of the essence and we must act quickly and decisively. We can’t wait to see how bad it gets.”
The approach is in stark contrast to the United States, where some politicians refuse to implement measures against the virus even as the number of cases increases, or Europe, where lockdowns were introduced only after infections increased.
South Australians have been told to only leave their homes to do essential jobs, to buy food or for health reasons. The state is the first in Australia to ban outdoor exercise for all residents since the pandemic began.
Nicola Spurrier, health director, said the “extreme” measures would give the state 1.8 million people time to control contact tracing and stop chains of transmission.
“I can’t make this decision in two or three weeks or even two or three days because it will be too late,” he said.
On Monday, when 17 cases were confirmed, authorities had begun ordering thousands of suspected close contacts to self-isolate and suspended international flights.
Since then, Adelaide residents have been flocking to COVID-19 testing sites, and many have been forced to wait several hours in long lines to be seen by overwhelmed doctors.
South Australia’s new restrictions come amid fears the latest outbreak has the potential to infect high-risk populations, with health workers and a prison guard among those testing positive.
Spurrier said the state hoped to avoid a prolonged Melbourne-style shutdown, where residents of Australia’s second-largest city spent months confined to their homes after security gaffes in a hotel quarantine.
The announcement sparked a new round of panic buying in Adelaide, despite assurances that supermarkets would remain open.
“We will have police officers on standby to attend if we see any civil disorder and we will take action. This is completely unacceptable,” said South Australian Police Commissioner Grant Stevens.
Melbourne, which recorded thousands of cases and hundreds of deaths at the height of its outbreak, has begun easing restrictions after more than two weeks with no new cases.
Other regions, where the virus has been largely eliminated, have imposed new quarantine rules on anyone traveling from South Australia.
The internal borders of the country had been gradually reopened and were to be reopened almost completely by Christmas.
Australia has been relatively successful in containing the virus, with just over 27,700 cases and 907 deaths recorded since the pandemic began.
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