SA Covid updates for February 4, 2022: Two city bars listed as exposure sites

Two CBD night spots have been listed as new exposure sites by SA Health. It comes as the state recorded one more death but a slight drop in case numbers on Thursday.

Two city bars have been listed as new exposure sites by SA Health.

They are Zhivago nightclub on Currrie St, which is named as a close contact, and Fumo Blu cocktail bar on Rundle St, which is a high-risk location. In both cases the exposure period is from Friday, January 28 until Saturday, January 29. Zhivago’s exposure time is from 11.45pm until 5.30am, while Fumo Blu’s is from 10.30pm to 1.30am.

Woodville’s Zone Bowling also was recently listed as a high risk location, from 9am to 1.30pm on January 25.

It’s the first time in weeks SA Health has listed exposure sites.

Late last year chief public health officer Professor Nicola Spurrier said contact tracers had changed their approach as numbers increased.

Meanwhile, one more South Australian has died but there has been a slight drop in Covid case numbers from 1723 to 1583, Premier Steven Marshall announced on Thursday.

Of those new cases, 1237 were uncovered via PCR tests and 346 were from RATs.

The number of people with Covid in hospital has also dipped – from 233 to 226, 18 of which are in ICU compared to 21 on Wednesday, and five are still ventilated.

Mr Marshall made the update as he toured the state’s flood-hit north, where he said restoring the critical Stuart Highway was the government’s “number one priority”.

Meanwhile, South Australia’s 16 and 17 year olds are able to receive a Covid-19 vaccine booster at walk-in clinics across Adelaide and at some regional sites from today.

Authorities have approved the Pfizer booster for the cohort, meaning they can now get the jab if they have had their second dose at least three months ago.

The teenagers can attend walk-in clinics from today at Wayville, Playford, Noarlunga, Kilkenny, Enfield, Adelaide, the Women’s and Children’s Hospital, Port Augusta and Whyalla.

Online booking will be available via covid-vaccine.healthdirect.gov.au/booking/ in the coming days after the commonwealth booking system has been updated.

Premier Steven Marshall called on 16 and 17-year-olds to roll up their sleeves for a booster before many of them return to school on February 14.

“We have thousands of walk-in and pre-booked appointments available between now and when school returns on 14 February for those 16 and 17 years old who had their second dose more than three months ago,” he said.

“And for those who may have started year 12 this week – appointments are available before school, after school and on weekends.”

Brodie Stevenson, 16, of Henley Beach South, is planning to get his booster “as soon as I can”.

“Everyone needs to get it as soon as possible really,” he said.

“I’m over all of this lockdown stuff.”

Watch a replay of the press conference below:

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2022 UPDATE:

One more South Australian died and 1723 new Covid cases were reported as Premier Steven Marshall welcomed Year 7 students to high school for the first time on Wednesday.

“It does let us remind every single South Australian not to be complacent,” he said.

He encouraged people to go and get a PCR test if they were symptomatic.

He said he did caution that yesterday’s lower case numbers might have been “artificially reduced because of the hot conditions we had the day before”.

However he said he believed SA was over the peak.

He said RATs tests had been delivered to most schools, with about 50 childcare centres and schools waiting on some deliveries which should arrive today.

“Today is an historic day for our state, year 7s move to the secondary setting for the first time ever. We’ve built four new schools for the start of Term 1, 2022,” Mr Marshall said from the new Riverbanks College.

The premier said there were no plans to extend homeschool beyond the scheduled period. 

“All of the indications are that we’re doing extraordinarily well at the moment.

“We made it clear it was always going to be a disrupted start to this school year”.

“About 40 per cent of our students today will start face to face, the other 60 per cent on the 14th of February.”

He called for people to wear masks, get vaccinated and said restrictions would be further eased “when it is safe to do so”.

Home gathering caps, increasing density limits, standing up drinking, as well as dancing at weddings would be under careful consideration but “we don’t want to have a second wave in SA”.

Earlier, Police Commissioner Grant Stevens said home gathering caps would be central to talks as part of the next tranche of restrictions to ease but declined to provide details.

“The last changes to the restrictions occurred on the 29th of January and the intent at this point in time so we can monitor the impact of those changes is to potentially gradually relax those restrictions on roughly a fortnightly basis based on what activities are occurring within the community,” he told ABC Radio on Wednesday.

“So at this point in time we’re aiming for that fortnight from the 29th of January and we’re certainly talking about home gatherings as one of those restrictions that may be eased.”

Asked how much that would increase to, he replied: “I wouldn’t speculate we’ll certainly be getting advice from SA Health and taking that advice into account as we discuss that and make a determination, which will be announced once we have a clear position on the South Australian shift will be.”

Premier Steven Marshall speaking to the media at a press conference. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Naomi Jellicoe

Chief Public Health Officer Nicola Spurrier said 1370 of Wednesday’s cases were diagnosed with PCR testing and 406 with RATs.

There are 233 people in hospital, 21 in ICU and 5 on ventilators.

She said 10,079 were tested in the past 24 hours.

“We are clearly on the decay of this outbreak and the wave is coming down and that’s important because we do have schools going back,” she said.

“The wave is on the way down.”

On RATs in school, prof Spurrier said there were plenty of RATS “in the system” and if one or two teachers were needing a test, it would be easily solved.

She said one of her teams would be working closely with the Electoral Commission on a plan so people in isolation are able to vote in the March 19 state election.

“The expectation is that there will be a lot more postal votes this year.”

Education Minister John Gardner said he had no regrets about year 7s starting high school.

“Every other system in the country has done this for many years,” he said.

He said he felt for families having to deal with the juggle of work and online schooling but said it was only for two weeks.

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 2022 UPDATE:

There are 1266 new Covid cases and three South Australians have died in the past 24 hours, it was announced on Tuesday.

Premier Steven Marshall said the numbers included 858 positive results from PCR tests and 408 from RATs and that there was now fewer than 18928 active cases in SA.

“We’re down to 273 patients in our hospitals,” Mr Marshall said.

Of those 22 are in ICU and five are on ventilators at the two-year mark of the pandemic in SA.

“There is an opportunity to look forward with optimism. We’ve got the vaccination rate up high and we’ve got the testing regimen under control,” he said.

He said the state government was close to an announcing on the resumption of elective surgery, “probably later today”.

He said vaccination was the best way forward to lift restrictions further.

Mr Marshall responded to the latest report on Ambulance response times which showed some of the worst wait times in the nation.

“We are massively increasing our recruitment of ambulance officers here in SA,” Mr Marshall said.

“Last financial year’s performance was unacceptable. Since then we’ve put in lots of investment and some of those programs are now starting to bear fruit.

“We want to end ramping in SA, but there’s no simple solution.

“The mess that Labor left the health system in needs time to unwind, it needs time to improve.”

He also today announced the opening of the new 26-bed short-stay unit at Modbury Hospital as part of the $98 million hospital upgrade.

Health Minister Stephen Wade also defended the latest Ambulance services report

“We have more workers now,” he said, pointing out the report was from last financial year - not this one.

“There is no doubt that the pandemic has had a significant impact on services.

“In recent months I’m delighted to see a significant reduction in Ambulance ramping.

“We’re determined to continue to deal with ambulance ramping.”

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