SA Covid updates for February 1 2022: Three deaths and news soon on elective surgery

Three South Australians have died in the past 24-hours with Covid, with the premier saying he will have news on the resumption of elective surgery “probably later today”.

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There are 1266 new Covid cases today and three South Australians have died in the past 24 hours.

Premier Steven Marshall saif 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 regime under control,” he said.

He said the state government was close to an announcing on the resumtpion 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 Ambuilance 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.”

MONDAY, JANUARY 31 UPDATE

Six more people have died with Covid and there have been 1505 new positive cases, Premier Steven Marshall announced on Monday/

His announcement came with news of a new helpline for parents struggling to get their at-home learning sorted before school starts on Wednesday.

Online learning material for children who are close contacts or Covid positive also will be supplied so that teachers aren’t required to make teaching plans for them.

Of Monday’s 1505 cases, 1113 were identified through PCR tests and 392 via RATs.

Mr Marshall said 281 were in hospital, with 25 in ICU - four of whom were on ventilators.

Some 8,880 tests were carried out on Sunday.

He said he wanted more children vaccinated.

“There is now no excuse - there are appointments available now, today,” Mr Marshall said.

SA has the highest booster rate of any state in the country, he said.

The online learning material has been developed directly from South Australian teachers in the past few weeks.

Mr Marhsall said he was very concerned for those in the APY lands, including the 29 indigenous people in hospital and 3 in ICU.

“That’s an over representation of indigenous people in our hospitals (with Covid).”

There was about 1000 active cases in the aboriginal community in SA.

Education Minister John Gardner said he was “really proud of the work” from the Education Department.

Metropolitan schools will receive RATs today and some regional sites will be receiving them tomorrow.

It would have been good if they received them last week but that was an unfortunate logistics issue, Mr Gardner said.

“The expectation is that all schools will have their RAT supply ahead of school starting on Wednesday.” 

The Premier said “hundreds of thousands” of RATs were arriving every day and millions had been ordered.

“This is a major logistical exercise - there were a small number of schools and pre-schools that didn’t have the RATs and we will rectify this in the next 24 hours.”

He did encourage those with symptoms and close contacts to get a PCR test if they could as they are far more accurate than a RAT.

Meanwhile, the Mile End vaccination clinic may close.

“The mile end clinic has been staffed by nurses from the private sector. As there isn’t a massive demand and a lot of excess of supply of vaccinations this site may soon be closed and those nurses back to work on elective surgeries,” Mr Marshall said.

SUNDAY, JANUARY 30 UPDATE

Premier Steven Marshall has announced the deaths of two more South Australians with Covid and 1633 new cases on Sunday.

The two deaths were males in their 80s.

There are 289 people in hospital, and 20,569 active cases, as Mr Marshall said it was a “good day”, with a “continuing downward trajectory in positive cases”.

Mr Marshall said there were 11,489 Covid tests conducted on Saturday and urged people to use PCR tests if they had any symptoms, as there were no queues.

He said the state’s Covid authorities would be watching the figures closely this week, as students start to return to school, workers to their officers and an easing of hospitality restrictions allow more people to go out.

“If we see a massive increase in mobility, we’re likely to change that (downward) trajectory. But all things being even we should still continue to see numbers coming down,” he said.

Mr Marshall said SA should brace to see the number of infections in lower age groups grow as school returns.

“It will be face-to-face for about 40 per cent of our students and online learning for about 60 per cent (from Wednesday),” he said.

“We might see a change in the median age (of Covid cases) as schools go back, we envisage it could actually lower here in South Australia marginally.

“But the models tell us there will be no second peak in South Australia coming from the changes we’ve put in place.”

Meanwhile, authorities could give the final tick of approval for booster jabs for 16 and 17 year olds as early as today.

The Therapeutic Goods Administration approved the adult booster shot for the teens last week and now it just needs the final endorsement from the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI).

“We’re hopeful that could come through today, tomorrow or certainly in the next couple of days and that means that we’ll be able to get the boosters in the arms of those 16 and 17 year olds before they get back to school,” Mr Marshall said.

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