Police Commissioner Grant Stevens says SA will likely ease close contact rules for national consistency

Grant Stevens says SA will likely change close contact Covid rules soon to bring us into line with other states, as a new survey reveals businesses are at breaking point.

Close contact Covid rules could be eased within weeks in South Australia in a bid to fall into line with eastern states, Police Commissioner Grant Stevens says.

Victorian and New South Wales governments today announced they will dump close contact isolation rules by Friday, and Mr Stevens said SA authorities are holding similar discussions.

Both eastern state governments were forming plans to axe the rules on Tuesday evening which currently require close contacts of a positive Covid case to be forced into isolation for seven days.

The changes, which were confirmed on Wednesday morning, will drop close contact isolation so long as exposed people do not visit high-risk settings for a week.

They must also wear a mask at indoor public settings, and take a rapid antigen test before interacting with people if practical.

On Wednesday morning Mr Stevens said Premier Peter Malinauskas hoped for consistency of Covid rules with other states.

Isolation rules for household close contacts are likely to change in SA. Picture: iStock

“It’s on the agenda for us, ideally, I think the Premier has made this point, that he’s keen for national consistency wherever possible and I think that’s best for everyone if the rules are consistent between states and territories,” Mr Stevens told FIVEaa on Wednesday.

“The Emergency Management Council met yesterday (Tuesday), there was some discussion about this and there was a reference to the fact that the eastern states are looking to make these changes, it’s on the agenda for us.

“So we’re looking at it (close contact rules) now, that will be on the agenda for the next Emergency Management Council meeting (April 26),” he said.

It comes as hundreds of SA businesses are pleading with authorities to scrap the close contact rules as soon as possible due to staff shortages relating to the requirements.

Nearly 200 businesses responded to the Business SA William Buck Survey of Business Expectations undertaken for the March quarter, of which 64 per cent said their business was impacted by staff catching Covid or being confirmed as close contacts.

Of the respondents, 83 per cent said their business had run short staffed due to Covid 19.

The survey’s results were released a week early in a bid to prompt change, Business SA spokeswoman Kendall Crowe said.

“We knew we needed to share these close contact results early because the business community needs these to be gone,” she said.

At the end of March, the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee made recommendations for a nationally consistent transition to the removal of the requirement for close contacts to isolate.

It said following the peak impact of the Omicron sub-variant, the need to quarantine should be replaced by other measures including frequent rapid antigen testing and wearing masks.

Mr Stevens this week said the peak in SA appeared to have passed, after 3,829 cases were reported on Tuesday, compared to consistent case numbers above 4000 a day last week. On Wednesday, case numbers and hospital admissions jumped again, amid a surge in testing after Easter. SA Health reported 4,256 infections, which was 427 extra from Tuesday’s total after more than 2000 people had Covid tests.

The state recorded the highest rates of hospital admissions since February 1.

While mask mandates were eased in most settings across SA last week, discussions are still under way over whether they will still be required in schools from term 2.