Covid-19: Adelaide Airport declared exposure site as hundreds isolate in SA to stop coronavirus spread

Adelaide Airport has been declared a Covid exposure site – but no more positive cases have been found so far – as SA tries to stop the spread of the Delta variant that has infected a family.

Hundreds of people are now isolating as SA faces tough new restrictions after a miner and his family tested positive for Covid-19.

SA Health has ordered those they’ve contacted to isolate for 14 days.

On Thursday morning, Premier Steven Marshall said no more people had tested positive overnight: “No positive tests have come back and that’s a very positive sign,” he said.

Chief public health officer Nicola Spurrier said she hadn’t had any “concerning news” and was feeling “much more reassured that we have got control of the situation”.

Authorities have now declared Adelaide Airport a Covid exposure site, along with the Virgin Australia flight the miner travelled on, which has already been declared an exposure site.

Anyone who was at the airport terminal – travellers and visitors – on Friday, 25 June between 5.40pm and 6.30pm, is being asked to immediately self-isolate for 14 days, get tested and notify SA Health.

SA Health has identified exposure locations associated with positive cases of COVID-19.

Adelaide Airport (travellers and visitors) -
◾️ Fri 25 June - 5.40pm to 6.30pm

Flight VA1724
◾️ Fri 25 June - 3.30pm to 5.30pm

Find the relevant health advice at https://t.co/BPuCyDTNqi. pic.twitter.com/7ESn0dxjQq

— SA Health (@SAHealth) June 30, 2021

New restrictions came in on Wednesday as a result of the family’s positive test.

Adelaide, Barossa, Fleurieu Peninsula, Mt Barker, and Adelaide Hills house gatherings are now restricted to 10 – it remains at 150 for the rest of SA.

There is also a “strong recommendation” statewide to wear masks when you leave home, including in shopping centres and on public transport and if you cannot social distance at the office you are encouraged to work from home if possible.

On Wednesday, it was revealed a South Australian miner from a gold mine in the Tanami Desert in the Northern Territory – who initially tested negative on Saturday – later tested positive on Tuesday after symptoms developed.

His wife and three of his four children, aged under 10, also tested positive. A baby tested negative.

SA Health is treating the initial negative test as a false result.

All had been staying at home after the miner flew back on Virgin flight VA1742 from Alice Springs at 5pm on Friday, apart from a brief stop at a takeaway shop on the way home from the airport.

All 121 passengers on the flight have now been contacted and told to isolate and get tested, takeaway shop staff have also been contacted, and airport CCTV is being examined although it appears the man, carrying only hand luggage and wearing a mask, walked straight out where his wife picked him up to drive home.

He was one of 29 miners who flew to Adelaide after a charter flight to Alice Springs. They and their close contacts have been asked to isolate. The miners have tested negative, but are being retested.

The man wore a mask during the layover at Alice Springs airport, on the flight and in Adelaide Airport, and had stayed at home with his family before being tested.

At a press conference just before noon on Wednesday, Mr Marshall said it was fortunate the miner had done the right thing.

“If these people had got up and gone to the footy and down to the shops it’s quite possible we’d have a catastrophic situation in South Australia right now,” he said.

“We are not going into lockdown – I think many people will be relieved about that. We do know this Delta variant is very worrying.”

Mr Marshall and Professor Spurrier emphasised the importance of being tested if you have any symptoms, getting vaccinated when eligible, and using QR codes for rapid contact tracing if necessary.

Prof Spurrier praised both the miner and the mining company for their actions, noting the company had texted all workers immediately telling them to isolate and get tested, while the man had voluntarily isolated on return home apart from the stop at a drive through takeaway shop, which was before he had been alerted.

She declined to name the shop at this stage but would do so if it became a public health necessity.

Prof Spurrier said officials were contact tracing to prevent community transmission.

“We’re just spreading the net a bit more broadly because we do not want this Delta strain in South Australia,” she said.

Chief public health officer Professor Nicola Spurrier, and Police Commissioner Grant Stevens at the press conference. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Dean Martin

The children’s grandparents, who were the only visitors, have been tested and are negative.

Pathology staff and nurses at the Victoria Park site where he was tested are also isolating.

They were texted by the mining company on Saturday when it was discovered a miner had Covid and the man in his 30s had his first test at 11am on the Saturday, which showed negative.

It appears his first test may have been a false negative and authorities are treating it as such out of caution.

The family is now in the Tom’s Court hotel – authorities are planning to clean their house and are also taking care of their pregnant pet dog.

Police commissioner Grant Stevens called on people to use QR codes.

“It’s a minor imposition that helps protect the community of South Australia,” he said.

“We are expecting the community to comply with that.”

He said masks were a “very strong recommendation but not mandatory at this time but we will continue to monitor that … we can change our mind at any time on that”.

Daniel Gannon, SA Executive Director of the Property Council of Australia, welcomed the decision not to impose a lockdown.

“As a business community, we are not health experts – but this approach must be commended.

“It’s obviously welcome news that South Australia is not entering another lockdown, but this should serve as a timely reminder that this virus still looms large in our state.”

Yesterday was the highest number of daily tests – 11,214 – since November 27 in the middle of the Parafield cluster outbreak.

Covid-INFECTED FAMILY FLY TO SA ON PRIVATE PLANE

A Covid-19 positive family was allowed to fly in to South Australia from overseas on a privately funded medical emergency evacuation flight, SA Health has confirmed.

Chief public health officer Professor Nicola Spurrier said it was allowed under a “pre-existing arrangement” and that medevac flights occurred in Southeast Asia when people were sick.

“It is a charter flight, a small flight, medical retrieval plane that goes and receives them,” Ms Spurrier said.

“It is a hospital to hospital transfer, so the initial contact will be made between the hospital where that person is and in our state Royal Adelaide Hospital.

“This happens on a fairly regular basis in the eastern states like Queensland and NSW because of course they are a little bit closer to many of those regions.

“But in this instance this family live in Adelaide so they were returning residents and this was why the medevac retrieval was organised in this way.”

She said they were Australians working for an Australian company who were from Adelaide.