Tough new restrictions from midnight as fourth Covid case revealed

Tough new restrictions have come into force in SA, after an 81-year-old man sparked a Covid cluster that has now grown to four cases. Here’s how it all unfolded.

• This story is no longer updating. Latest updates HERE

• This coronavirus article is unlocked and free to read in the interest of community health and safety. Click here for full digital access to trusted news from The Advertiser for just $1 a week for the first 12 weeks

PLEASE NOTE: This report is no longer being updated.

GO HERE FOR THE LATEST

Tougher restrictions came into force overnight after an 81-year-old man and his daughter tested positive to Covid-19 – with authorities treating it as the highly infectious Delta strain.

A third and fourth case have now been revealed. The third case is a man in his 50s who is a close contact of the 81-year-old man and is also a staffer at Tea Tree Gully Council – which will close its facilities on Tuesday.

The fourth case is a man who was another close contact of the 81-year-old man and was already in quarantine. Further updates will be revealed by SA Health later on possible new exposure sites visited by the fourth case.

New exposure sites also were identified overnight – scroll down to see the list below.

SA Health’s deputy chief public health officer said the third and fourth case were both in Tom’s Court medi-hotel.

Dr Emily Kirkpatrick told ABC Radio Adelaide on Tuesday morning the fourth case was confirmed late Monday night.

“We're still working through those details but we’ll have more information later this morning at today’s press conference around his particular details and what this means for the community,” Dr Kirkpatrick said.

She confirmed 60 people from Modbury Hospital, including staff, patients and paramedics, who were notified as potential contacts of the 81-year-old who visited the hospital while infectious, had been conveyed to medi-hotels overnight.

Tough new restrictions in force

Under restrictions that came in overnight, private gatherings will be capped at 10, all non-essential retail must close and gyms and team and contact sport must stop. Masks are required indoors and working from home is strongly encouraged. Weddings and funerals are capped at 10, while only outdoor dining and seated drinking is allowed.

Q&A: What the new restrictions mean

The restrictions began at midnight and are set to continue until Friday, but Police Commissioner Grant Stevens said “this is not a lockdown”.

“We need to restrict movement in the community,” he said.

Premier Steven Marshall said authorities had to act fast.

“We’ve only got one chance to get this right. We are very concerned. We are treating this as the Delta variant. We are going to go hard and go early,” he said on Monday.

RESTRICTIONS ANNOUNCED:

• Home and private gatherings reduced now to 10, including weddings and funerals.
• Density for public venues back to 1 per 4 sqm or 25 per cent capacity, from a current 75 per cent. This include pubs, clubs, churches and mosques. Masks required indoors.
• Non-essential retail must close, including hairdressers and beauty services.
• Newsagents, hardware stores, health services, pharmacies, supermarkets, bottle shops, mechanics, opticians, optometrists, medical and orthopaedic businesses, petrol stations, heating and fuel providers, mechanics, pet stores, laundromats and dry cleaners, post offices, banks, credit unions, libraries can remain open, as can retailers who sell products to keep homes and offices safe and clean.
• Schools stay open, as do offices.
• People encouraged to work from home where they can.
• No team, club or contact sport.
• No spectators allowed at any sporting active
• Masks for all high-risk settings, including on public transport and shared indoors spaces.
• Gyms must close.
• Restrictions remain on singing and dancing.
• Outdoor dining only.
• No CMP events (That Covid-19 Management Plan events).
• No communal consumption facilities.
• Dancing banned.
• No buffets in licensed premises.
• Shisha sharing at Shisha bars banned.

All restrictions will be reviewed on Friday. For more detail, go here

The restrictions were introduced after the 81-year-old man tested positive at 2.30am at Modbury Hospital in the northeastern suburbs on Sunday, putting its emergency department in lockdown. The man and his daughter were active in the community.

His daughter, in her 50s, initially tested negative but later tested positive and is now in a stable condition in Tom’s Court medi-hotel.

The third patient in his 50s worked at Tea Tree Gully Council’s Golden Grove depot but not in a customer service role. He worked last week.

Contact tracers are investigating when he saw the elderly man. A council spokesman said all its facilities would close “out of abundance of caution” including its popular Modbury civic centre where its executive and library are based.

At least 400 staff are affected but any exposure times are still being investigated.

Five of the 81-year-old man’s 16 close contacts are negative.

The elderly man, who has a large family in SA, was at the Modbury Hospital on Sunday night and is now in the Royal Adelaide Hospital, where he is in a stable condition in the Covid ward.

He tested negative after quarantining in NSW and authorities are now scrambling to determine where he caught Covid.

Mr Marshall said the woman initially tested negative after a “rapid test”.

“We go in and do a very rapid test and then we go in and do a full PCR test … that’s come back as a weak positive, which could mean we’ve got it very early or very late,” he said.

SA chief public health officer Nicola Spurrier said movement in SA needed to be restricted while contact tracers track where the man and his daughter went while infectious.

“What we do not have yet is all the people she and her father have come across over the past week … that’s why we have this time to restrict movement for people here in South Australia. We don’t have time. We ask the South Australian community to reduce movement while my team can do the contact tracing.”

The man was treated at Prince Alfred Hospital in NSW but SA Health do not yet know where he contracted the virus.

Prof Spurrier said it was likely genomic testing due on Tuesday would show the Covid strain was the highly infectious Delta strain.

She said the restrictions covered all of SA because of people had been travelling during the school holidays.

“We’ve had school holidays and we’ve had people travel to other parts of the state,” Prof Spurrier said. “The other reason is what’s been happening in Victoria on the other side of the border in Mildura so it made sense to make it for the whole state.”

A new Covid testing clinic is planned for the northeast suburbs. SA Health and Tea Tree Gully Council are working to soon launch the site in the Waterworld carpark at Ridgehaven.

NSW recorded 98 new cases today, while Victoria had 12 and extended its lockdown.

Sixteen other close contacts of the man are now in quarantine – several have so far returned negative tests.

A long queue for Covid testing at Tea Tree Medical Center, after a man tested positive to the virus at Modbury Hospital. Picture: Keryn Stevens

Premier Steven Marshall said the man recently returned from Argentina, where he had one vaccination.

The man spent 14 days in quarantine in NSW but developed symptoms at the weekend.

The origin of the infection is unknown. The man spent 10 of those days in hospital in NSW after a fall and returned to SA on July 8.

Restrictions enforcing 14-day quarantine for anyone travelling from NSW were put into place at 5.22pm on Friday.

“He has been out and about in the community and we now need to identify those people who could have potentially been in contact with him,” Mr Marshall said.

“We’re assuming it is the Delta variant but we don’t have the final genomic testing of that strain yet – that will likely take 24 hours for those tests to come back.”

An SA Health worker conducting Covid tests at Tea Tree Medical Center in Modbury, where there are big line-ups after the case was revealed. Picture: Keryn Stevens

Prof Spurrier called it “a very serious situation we now have here in South Australia”.

She said the man started feeling unwell on July 17. His infectious period began on July 14 “but we will do contact tracing from the 8th”.

Results of the man’s test came through at 2.30am showing “an acute infection with a high viral load”.

Contact tracers are urgently investigating amid mounting concerns about the time frame of the infection.

Under federal law, international travellers must serve a mandatory fortnight of quarantine at their port of arrival, but there are no internal border restrictions placed on them once they leave.

Expatriates must show proof of their medi-hotel discharge and must have travelled directly to the airport after they leave.

There are 27 patients who have been moved from Modbury Hospital to the RAH and 25 Modbury Hospital staff have been placed into precautionary quarantine in a medi-hotel until results of the highly specialised genomic testing are known.

The Elizabeth Vale School, in the northern suburbs, was shut today because the man’s grandson taught there and there were fears he had been on the school grounds during the holidays. He had not and it will reopen tomorrow.

SA Health now has 16 primary close contacts and is now looking for the second close contacts to “double ring” the infection.

The note left outside Elizabeth Vale School, which was closed on Monday after fears the grandson of the Covid patient at visited over the school holidays. Picture: The Advertiser / Morgan Sette

Mr Stevens urged people to avoid travelling in and out of the Riverland, after a second case emerged in Mildura today.

“We are people to consider the need to travel to the Riverland and limit unnecessary travel into and out of the Riverland,” he said.

A fortnight ago a miner, Adam Ryan, aged in his 30s, and his family became infectious but they isolated before their Covid-19 illnesses were proven.

Authorities applauded their decision, which saved the state from going into lockdown.

The state’s worst outbreak, the Parafield Cluster, was identified after a patient at the Lyell McEwin Emergency Department coughed while being treated.

Modbury Hospital is one of the main medical facilities in Adelaide’s northeast and is located opposite the popular Tea Tree Plaza shopping centre.

The state is on edge after three Sydney removalists travelled to SA 10 days ago, two of whom were infectious with the Delta strain.