SA Covid tests: RATs are out again as PCR rules return

Rapid tests won’t be good enough for close contacts anymore as SA authorities declare they’re ordering people back onto their “gold standard”.

SICK close contacts of an infectious Covid-19 case will be required to seek a laboratory test rather than have a rapid DIY check, under proposed changes from Sunday.

SA Health is preparing to again overhaul its testing rules that would now require a symptomatic close contact to have a “gold standard” SA Pathology PCR swab where previously it was only recommended.

Under current rules, any close contacts, regardless of symptoms, could collect two of their own rapid antigen tests and disclose any positive result to Covid authorities. Sales of RAT kits will still be allowed.

But amid a sharp fall in testing that has opened up capacity and relieved demand pressures at more than 86 testing stations, SA Health chiefs have advised the state government new changes can be introduced as early as Sunday.

Neither SA Health nor the Premier’s office would comment ahead of an expected announcement as final details are thrashed out.

South Australian Chief Public Health Officer Professor Nicola Spurrier at Riverbanks College, Angle Vale Picture: Kelly Barnes

Senior government sources said testing wait times had improved significantly, allowing for the changes.

“Testing for Covid-19 is still more important than ever, particularly as children return to school and we start to look at easing some restrictions across the state in a gradual way,” they said.

“As the pressure eases on our PCR testing, it is timely to consider using the gold standard … more broadly again and we are now asking anyone with symptoms to (one).”

Those with Covid-19 symptoms, such as a cough, sore throat, runny nose, unexplained tiredness or fever, must already get a PCR check.

Legal directions, authorised by Police Commissioner Grant Stevens, state people must get a lab throat and deep-nose swab if their RAT is positive.

Asymptomatic close contacts can have either a PCR check or a RAT, which authorities say is unreliable as it produces false negative results.

Close contacts who get a negative result from the home kit on their first or sixth day in isolation, but still feel sick, must seek a lab check. Lab testing rates have fallen from a high of almost 26,000 on New Year’s Eve, when lines were more than nine hours long, to 7031 last Tuesday.

Police commissioner Grant Stevens with Premier Steven Marshall. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Naomi Jellicoe

SA Health is moving its 24-hour Ridgehaven site in Adelaide’s northeast to Walkley Heights despite Tea Tree Gully Council suggesting other locations, sources said.

Figures show almost 207,000 RATs have been collected which can be collected from 24 sites across the state.

But a spokesman for the South Australian Fire and Emergency Services Commission could not provide daily totals despite Premier Steven Marshall revealing it almost every day at daily briefings.

Mr Stevens, who makes approves all legal directions as state Covid-19 co-ordinator, said the testing slump was “being watched quite closely”.

“The access to rapid antigen tests has potentially had an impact on people attending for PCR tests,” he said.

Another two Covid-19 patients, women in their 80s, have died, while 1384 cases were recorded as five fewer patients were in hospital.