SA Health boss hoses down hopes for quarantine-free Christmas as 8000 wait for exemptions

More than 8000 South Aussies longing to come home are waiting for their exemption applications to be processed, as the plan to open the borders for Christmas appears in doubt.

More exemption applications to enter South Australia are now being processed daily than are being received – and despite about 8000 being assessed, almost 8000 are still in the queue.

SA Health chief executive Dr Chris McGowan told parliament’s budget and finance committee that extra staff – including executive assistants – had been redeployed to deal with the backlog, as South Australians stranded in NSW and Victoria look to return home and other people seek to relocate to the state permanently.

He said processing time was now down to about 20 days.

Earlier, SA Health cast doubt on the plan to throw open the borders to free entry from NSW and Victoria in time for Christmas.

Premier Steven Marshall’s announcement that he was “hopeful” double-vaccinated interstate arrivals could come to South Australia for Christmas without quarantining was done without advice from SA Health – which expects quarantine for such arrivals to continue “in the short term”.

Dr McGowan told the committee he was “not aware of any health advice” that there would be no need for fully vaccinated visitors not to quarantine by Christmas, nor had he given the Premier such advice.

Last week Mr Marshall said: “I’m hopeful that all of those people coming back from interstate who are double-vaccinated and that haven’t been to exposure sites will be able to come back and enjoy a relatively normal Christmas in SA.”

Police and health authorities away arrivals at Adelaide Airport. Picture: Morgan Sette

However, Dr McGowan said: “It is not our expectation there would be no quarantine even for the double-vaccinated at this stage.”

It comes as more exposure sites were revealed on Monday after an infected truckie’s co-driver tested positive on Sunday night.

Following Mr McGowan’s comments, Mr Marshall said the state remains on track to open borders at 80 per cent vaccination.

“We’ve been extremely clear that hotspot requirements may apply to certain travellers coming from high-risk COVID areas. This has not changed,” he said.

“We are committed to reuniting families for Christmas and returning to a state of normality as quickly as possible.”

Dr McGowan said opening borders at 80 per cent double vaccination was based on the national road map.

“We are planning the processes for exactly what that looks like based on disease rates and risks to the population,” he said.

“There’s an expectation at 80 per cent we will relax borders in a controlled and cautious way, increase capacity in the health system, and where demand exceeds capacity manage the borders so we don’t overwhelm the health system.”

Mr McGowan said SA Health is ready to open 107 hospital beds in the event of a Covid outbreak and is working to have 300 ready in a “bad case” scenario of up to 4000 cases where the vast majority would be cared for in their own homes.

Travellers arrive at Adelaide Airport earlier in the year. Picture: Emma Brasier

SA Health chief executive Dr Chris McGowan at parliament's Budget and Finance Committee. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Kelly Barnes

He said using “simple maths” based on NSW outbreaks, after borders open SA could expect a peak of 3000 to 4000 active cases, and 5 per cent would need hospital beds.

Dr McGowan said there were no death projections, but noting the flu death toll in a typical year is around 100 said: “We are hoping it is not anything like as bad as that.”

SA Health has commissioned the Doherty Institute for infection projections specific to this state.

“This will be a pandemic of the unvaccinated,” Dr McGowan warned, adding that efforts to boost vaccination rates now included walk-in clinics and vax vans going to places such as mosques and remote communities.

“I am more than confident the hospital system has the capacity to manage an outbreak of reasonable proportions,” he said.

“We have the capacity to put in 107 additional beds, that would give us some breathing space.”

He noted there were elderly patients, as well as up to 200 NDIS patients, in acute hospitals beds ready to be moved to more appropriate care when it is available as part of the move to free up beds.

“There are lot of people in the RAH that if they could be somewhere else it would create capacity,” he said.

Rural patients will be treated at home or brought to the RAH in the medium term, the committee heard.

Unlike NSW, Mr McGowan said there was no plan to publish a “road map” showing trigger points to ease restrictions as it was a dynamic situation, but stressed that “we will be as explicit as we can”.

The committee was told SA had not had an elimination strategy, rather a “zero community transmission strategy and have been unbelievably effective with that, but we can’t stay in the bunker forever”.

“There will be cases in South Australia – we are moving to a strategy that tolerates a certain level of Covid in the community,” he said.

To Labor MP Kyam Maher’s amazement, Dr McGowan did not have ambulance ramping figures for August and September, saying he thought they were routinely published.

The committee was told processing time for exemption applications from South Australians stranded interstate was now about 20 days – about 8000 have been processed, and a similar number remain in the queue.

In his opening statement, Dr McGowan said just a few years ago SA Health’s governance was “not fit for purpose”, its leadership was unstable, it had poor finances and few plans for mental health, use of data or prevention strategies to keep people out of hospital.
“No wonder clinicians stopped paying attention to their leaders,” he said, saying all these areas had been significantly improved.