Caleb Bond: The fact someone raised even the quarantine rule beggars belief

Senseless quarantine for SA’s vaccinated – brought to you by the state that locked down because it thought it found a pizza box strain of super-Covid, writes Caleb Bond.

The reopening of South Australia’s borders to Victoria and NSW after what feels like eons is supposed to be a happy moment.

Families reunited, holidays back on the agenda, normal Christmas celebrations.

Instead, the week leading up to it has been a time of stress and anxiety for so many who are desperate to see their families because a stupid statistical anomaly had the potential to scupper their plans.

Chief public health officer Nicola Spurrier and the transition committee decided that if you lived in an area in NSW or Victoria where the vaccination rate – on paper – was below 80 per cent, you’d have to quarantine on arrival in SA.

Same goes if you travelled from Adelaide to Melbourne and came back home.

As we now know, the federal government’s council vaccination statistics are based on data from the 2016 census – which included foreign students who are no longer in the country, other young people who were forced to move back in with their parents when Covid cost them their jobs and people who fled the city to rural and regional towns.

It means many council areas in inner city Melbourne and Sydney – the places a tourist would be likely to visit – have official vaccination rates well below 80 per cent even though the real number is much higher.

Premier Steven Marshall, flanked by SA Health Minister Stephen Wade and Professor Nicola Spurrier. Picture: Naomi Jellicoe

The fact the data is wrong is bad enough in the first place.

But why Professor Spurrier and her mates thought it would be a smart idea to decide one’s ability to travel to SA by council area is beyond me.

In both NSW and Victoria, you can now go wherever you want.

Residents of one council area are not confined to their council area.

Someone who lives in the Melbourne suburb of Spotswood falls into Hobsons Bay Council, which has an official fully-vaxxed rate of 85.3 per cent.

They can drive 3km over the West Gate Bridge to Port Melbourne and they’d be in Port Phillip Council where the official vaccination rate is 76.9 per cent.

The bloke from Spotswood, who went to Port Melbourne Bunnings and mixed with other people from all over Melbourne, would presumably be allowed into SA.

Someone who lived in Port Melbourne, however, and walked past the Spotswood bloke at Bunnings, would not. Because he was a couple of kilometres over the wrong line.

Even if you only stayed within your council area, you are still mixing with people from all over the state.

A state, by the way, which is about to be 90 per cent fully vaccinated. New South Wales has already smashed that target.

That someone would be denied entry or re-entry to SA without quarantine on the basis of which council they live in, despite the fact everyone is going everywhere, is farcical.

The fact someone raised it – let alone that it was agreed to – beggars belief. It is entirely illogical.

This stupid rule is causing undue angst for people who have wanted to see their families for ages, were finally given a date that they could see them and then told at the last minute that they might not be able to because someone got the numbers wrong.

A police officer stands guard outside a pizza shop that copped the blame for a statewide lockdown. Picture: Getty Images

One woman, Kate Elliot, wrote to me on Wednesday in despair.

“I am double dosed, I stick close to home … but because my drivers license says Alphington (within the LGA of Darebin), I’m black listed,” she wrote.

Her friend, who she regularly meets and who visits places all over Melbourne, including in areas with official vaccination rates below 80 per cent, lives three suburbs away. She is also from SA and will be allowed in because her council has hit the magic number.

“How am I a bigger threat to SA’s health system than she is,” Kate wrote.

“It does not make sense. I’m not sure my heart can take it.”

Professor Spurrier, Steven Marshall – this is what your senseless rule is doing to people. Destroying their hope when they need it most.

Brought to you by the state that went into lockdown because it thought it had a super-strength pizza box strain of coronavirus.

The battle to return to normal, it seems, is far from over.