Premier Steven Marshall charts SA’s plans to reopen once vaccination targets are reached, flags targeted border closures
Snap border closures would be rare once SA hits its vaccination targets, Premier Steven Marshall said, as he charted the state’s path to reopening amid the ever-present threat of Covid.
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Premier Steven Marshall has reserved the right to impose snap border closures to high-case states once vaccination targets were reached, but said this would not be needed because of reduced Covid-19 transmission.
Charting the state’s reopening path, Mr Marshall flagged more targeted border restrictions to exclude people who had been in Covid-19 hot spots but said he wanted to normalise borders once vaccine targets were reached.
He said he hoped to open state borders safely, repeating that health advice stated this could happen by Christmas, once vaccination rates hit 80 per cent.
“If there is a state which has got 1000 cases per day, it doesn’t make much sense to throw open your borders because, why introduce it to your state?” Mr Marshall told The Advertiser.
“But I’m strongly of the opinion, and the Doherty model (guiding national reopening) suggests that as we get a higher vaccination rate, we’re going to have a much lower transmission rate, which will mean lower-level infections interstate and they will become more localised.”
Mr Marshall said a nation-first home quarantine trial in South Australia for low-risk travellers might be a game-changer, potentially, reducing isolation periods from 14 days.
Forecasts have shown 70 per cent of SA’s adults older than 16 would be fully vaccinated by November and 80 per cent by December. But increased dosage rates suggest the 80 per cent target could be hit by mid-November.
National employer association Ai Group chief executive Innes Willox has urged the removal of barriers to business travellers and returning Australians, and extending SA’s home quarantine trial.
The Doherty Institute has reiterated to national cabinet that it will be safe to fully re-open Australia when 80 per cent of people 16 years and over are fully vaccinated, regardless of case numbers.
After a week of back and forth between the federal government and the states and territories over the vaccination levels required to banish lockdowns, national cabinet was given another briefing from Doherty Institute’s modelling scenarios.
National cabinet was told that some public measures such as mask wearing, contact tracing and localised “moderate restrictions” would be necessary at 70 to 80 per cent of vaccination coverage.
Another 882 new cases of Covid-19 were recorded in NSW on Friday and two people died. Victoria announced 79 new locally acquired cases, and the ACT announced 21 new cases.
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