SA records new cases of locally acquired COVID-19, contact tracers try to prevent an outbreak
A northern suburbs school has been closed in a race to stop a new outbreak amid fears hundreds in Adelaide have been exposed to coronavirus.
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A large family with members working in high-risk medi-hotels, aged care, health care and a major prison have become the worst SA cluster to date – with that number jumping to 17 overnight.
The cases are the first community transmission in the state since April 15.
On Sunday night, three cases were confirmed, wtih four others in the family displaying symptoms.
That number leapt to 17 overnight, while hundreds more people in the northern suburbs have potentially been exposed to the virus. Scores of staff at Lyell McEwin Hospital, where one of the patients was tested, have also been told to quarantine.
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Chief public health officer Professor Nicola Spurrier said detailed contact tracing began after she received the positive lab results for one of the patients, a woman in her 80s, at 12.30am.
She said the Parafield cluster was already considered more dangerous than the Thebarton outbreak earlier this year, because it involved multiple public venues.
Mawson Lakes primary and preschool were closed for at least 24 hours out of “an abundance of caution”; a student is a close contact of a confirmed case.
The Western Australian government imposed two weeks quarantine on all passengers flying in from SA.
Prof Spurrier said it was too early to rule out whether people at the Adelaide Oval Christmas Pageant on Saturday had been exposed.
Shoppers who were at the Parafield Plaza supermarket centre between 10.30am and 11.30am last Thursday have been told to get tested.
The woman aged in her 80s spent 20 minutes shopping at the centre that day.
More venues are expected soon to be named and people who attended at certain times advised to be tested.
Also infected are a child of the woman in her 80s, and that person’s partner – one of them works at Peppers medi-hotel holding quarantined patients.
An alert was issued about Yatala prison saying a staff member had tested positive.
Mandatory testing every seven days has now been implemented for all staff and guests at all medi-hotels, because of the likelihood the family member’s work there was the source of the outbreak.
Prof Spurrier said the new cases were “very troubling”. She said the patients had a very large family, spent a lot of time together, had many close family contacts and jobs in highly sensitive workplaces.
The 80-year-old woman is believed to have been infected last Tuesday. She started showing symptoms two days later on November 12 but was not tested until November 14.
A “large effort” in contact tracing began early on Sunday, Prof Spurrier said, with dozens of tests on family members already carried out.
A media conference at 3.15pm was delayed by 15 minutes as testing was returned confirming the two additional cases, a woman in her 50s and a man in his 60s.
Prof Spurrier, who is bracing for more new cases, said any South Australian with flu-like symptoms should immediately present for a test.
“This is exactly when we need people with symptoms to be tested,’’ she said.
The Parafield cluster emerged when the woman in her 80s, now at the RAH in a stable condition, was tested at the Lyell McEwin Hospital emergency department. SA Health has urged anyone who was in that department between 5:30pm on Friday and 4am Saturday to get tested.
The woman was wearing a mask at the hospital but 90 people, staff and patients, have been ordered to quarantine.
The diagnosis by SA Health is unusual because, of the cases so far identified in SA, only nine were locally acquired and the last was on April 15.
A fourth new case, a man in his 30s, is a returned overseas traveller diagnosed in hotel quarantine.
Prof Spurrier said the Victorian border opening next month was not under review and neither were any crowd number restrictions in SA.
Prof Spurrier said others at Lyell McEwin Hospital may have been exposed.
“Today I am urging anyone in SA with any respiratory symptoms to get a COVID-19 test,’’ she said.
“There has been a drop-off in testing numbers… This is the only way we are going to be able to stamp this out.”
High-risk sites where the family members work have been contacted, including in the health care, aged care and corrections sectors.
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