SA border opens to regional Victoria on Wednesday if five-day lockdown ends

People in regional Victoria will be able to enter SA freely from tomorrow – if Victoria’s five-day lockdown ends as expected.

SA will open the border to regional Victorian areas tomorrow if that state lifts its statewide lockdown as planned.

There would be no requirements for people entering from regional Victoria.

Restrictions with Greater Melbourne will remain until there’s been no community transmission for 14 days since the most recent local case.

When those restrictions lift, people from Greater Melbourne would need to get a test on day one of entering SA, the days five and 12.

Speaking after Tuesday’s COVID-19 Transition Committee meeting, Police Commissioner Grant Stevens also introduced fines for anyone misusing private contact tracing information.

The fines are particularly aimed at handwritten COVID check-in records collected by SA businesses.

Despite police being aware of no breach of information collected by either QR codes or handwritten records, Mr Stevens said it was important information was “kept as securely as possible”.

Acting inspector Bryce Wood and nurse unit manager Nikki Clark, who will be working at the new Tom’s Court Hotel COVID19 hotel for sick coronavirus patients. Picture: Naomi Jellicoe

The fines are an interim measure in place while parliament considers a bill that would create a similar offence..

An individual faces a fine of $1000, a company $5000, while aggravated cases could see fines of $25,000 and $75,000.

Mr Stevens said the committee didn’t discuss relaxing restrictions around drinking and dancing in nightclubs or licensed venues, as was hoped.

Meantime, border restrictions for people travelling to South Australia via Melbourne Airport have eased slightly overnight.

The Pfizer vaccine arrives at Sydney International Airport on Singapore Airlines. Picture: Gaye Gerard/NCA NewsWire

People transiting from a low-community transmission zone through Melbourne Airport, who are in the airport for two hours or less, can enter SA without quarantining or testing.

Masks are still mandatory during the flight and in the airport.

The changes also include the removal of the requirement for essential travellers classified as cross border community members to be tested when travelling between SA and Victoria.

Victoria entered day four of its lockdown today.

Speaking at a public lecture yesterday, Professor Spurrier said borders were shut over concerns coronavirus could “take off” because SA was “pretty unrestricted”.

It comes as 60,000 South Australians at the frontline of the state’s COVID-19 war will start receiving coronavirus jabs within days after the vaccine arrived in the country this week.

The first shipment of 142,000 Pfizer vaccines landed in Sydney at lunchtime Monday, giving the nation a new boost of hope.

The first batch is due to arrive in SA mid next week before jabs start being given to the state’s frontline workers at the Royal Adelaide Hospital within hours of local authorities receiving stock.

The rollout’s first phase is for more than 60,000 people to be inoculated twice within 28 days, but the precise number of doses the Federal Government will deliver has not been publicly revealed.

As more stock is delivered into SA, more hubs will open at the state’s main public hospitals.

Vaccination of the general population is expected to begin in mid-2021. The ambitious program aims to have every SA resident offered a shot by Christmas.

In a statement, an SA Health spokeswoman said vaccinations would begin within 24 hours of the shipment arriving in Adelaide.

Under the first phase of the Federal Government’s vaccine rollout plan, quarantine workers, medi-hotel and airport staff, as well as healthcare staff working in “high-risk exposure and transmission areas”, will be vaccinated as a matter of priority, an SA Health spokeswoman said.

“We continue to work with the Commonwealth Government on the delivery time frame of the COVID-19 vaccination into South Australia,” the spokeswoman said.

“We anticipate administering the vaccination will commence at the Royal Adelaide Hospital next week.

“We are committed to providing all South Australians who wish to be vaccinated against COVID-19 with access to safe and effective vaccines as soon as we can.”

From Monday, Australia will embark on its biggest logistics exercise in peacetime with the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine eventually reaching up to 150,000 jabs a day. From today, consent forms will be available online for the guardians of aged-care residents to sign up their loved ones to receive the jab in the coming weeks.

The Federal Government has committed to vaccinating more than 20 million people by the end of October, starting with the Pfizer vaccine before increasing to more than a million jabs a week also using the AstraZeneca candidate.

Health Minister Greg Hunt. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Gary Ramage

In a vote of confidence for both jabs, Australia’s chief medical officer Professor Paul Kelly said he would happily take either.

The Pfizer shipment was brought by plane from the Belgian capital Brussels to Singapore and then Sydney Airport, where it was unloaded and transported to a secret DHL warehouse in Western Sydney.

Over the next few days, the vials will be stored in special -70C freezers as health authorities carry out damage assessments and batch testing.

The vaccines will be packed into boxes insulated with dry ice and distributed to 200 cold-storage facilities around the country before the rollout starts on Monday.

Health Minister Greg Hunt announced the historic moment by declaring “the eagle has landed”. He said the government expected the Therapeutic Goods Administration to make a decision on the AstraZeneca jab “in the near future”.

“If that is a positive decision, that shipping will occur,” he said. “That should see a doubling of the number of doses per week by early March, if not earlier.”

It is expected the government will unveil the final details of phase one this week.

Public bill for hotel overhaul

Taxpayers have spent more than $200,000 to modify Australia’s first quarantine facility for infectious coronavirus patients that opened at a CBD medi-hotel.

Tom’s Court Hotel, on King William Street, remained empty last night after SA Health reported a fourth day of no COVID-19 cases.

SA Health spent more than $200,000 on upgrading ventilation, installing CCTV and placing laser senses on doors.

Chief public health officer Nicola Spurrier told an Adelaide University public lecture that room cooking facilities and fridges helped doors stay closed more often.

“You can never get the risk down to zero, OK, you have infectious people there,” she said.

At least 5068 travellers from Victoria have replied to more than 25,000 messages warning about the Melbourne outbreak. Of those linked to Tullamarine Airport, 114 people must quarantine and 61 seek urgent testing.