SA’s chief public health officer urges people to stay home for New Year’s Eve to stop Omicron spread

SA’s devastated hospitality industry has been stunned by Professor Nicola Spurrier’s plea for people to avoid going out this New Year’s Eve.

Professor Nicola Spurrier’s plea for South Australians to stay at home on New Year’s Eve has been described as a “slap in the face” by the state’s struggling hospitality industry.

Venue operators said her comments, imploring people to have the “quietest New Year’s Eve they’ve ever had”, were another nail in the coffin for the sector, already battling with the reintroduction of tough Covid restrictions.

Oliver Brown, part of a team behind businesses including NOLA, Anchovy Bandit and Bowden Brewing, said there should be more support for venues putting on Covid-safe activities on NYE.

“To give restrictions to hospitality that are meant to help manage/limit the spread and then follow them up with a direction to ‘have a quiet NYE’ is utterly ridiculous,” said Mr Brown, who’s hosting various events at his venues on Friday night.

As a record 1472 Covid-19 cases were recorded in South Australia on Wednesday, in addition to thousands of active cases, Prof Spurrier urged people to party at home in a bid to stop the spread of Omicron.

“I want this to be the absolute quietest New Year’s Eve anybody has ever had. You can still make a bit of noise by yourself, I fully intend to do that on my own veranda,” she told FIVEaa, adding that restrictions would remain for an unknown amount of time.

“You can meet up with people on Zoom … but we really do not want to have lots of people getting together during that New Year’s Eve period.”

Chief public health officer Professor Nicola Spurrier says New Year’s Eve parties could become Covid superspreader events. Picture: Emma Brasier

Australian Hotels Association SA chief executive Ian Horne said the directive from Prof Spurrier was effectively a “lockdown by another name”.

“Those businesses that haven’t cancelled events or closed but were able to pivot to a compliant trading arrangement for New Year’s Eve now face even greater losses,” he said.

“I assume SA Health won’t be covering the lost wages, cost of spoiled goods or terminated musicians and entertainers as a result of this directive.”

Greg Maitland, owner of 15 venues around SA including Republic Norwood and Tower Hotel in Magill, said Prof Spurrier’s comments were “terrible” for everyone involved in hospitality.

“I’ve had to cut 1500 (workers’) hours this week across my venues, plus entertainers and everything associated with it. We’ve had mass cancellations of functions,” he said.

Early-morning Covid testing lines at the Royal Adelaide Hospital on Wednesday. Picture: Emma Brasier

Testing lines at Victoria Park on Wednesday. Picture: Emma Brasier

“It’s fine for 25,000 to go the (Big Bash) cricket but I can only get 25 per cent capacity ... it’s outrageous this and events like Fringe can go ahead yet pubs and restaurants remain to be unfairly treated because of a disorganised health system.”

Simone Douglas, co-founder of industry group Hospo Owners Collective, said business owners and operators across the state were left heartbroken by the situation.

“We are yet again met with a level of arrogance and indifference that beggars belief,” she said.

“To have our chief medical officer quoted instructing everyone to have the quietest New Year’s Eve in living memory and our Premier tell everyone to stay (working) at home until Jan 27th is a slap in the face. It’s tantamount to pushing people off a cliff and wishing them luck on the journey to the bottom.”

As South Australians endure long lines at testing sites, SA Health is maximising their testing capacity, and looking at changing testing requirements, Prof Spurrier said.

“We’ve still got a turnaround time with SA Pathology of 48 hours, but as we see the numbers increase we’re going to be making some decisions around some of the testing,” she said.

“I’m going to be looking at banning anyone in South Australia doing a test for pre-departure to fly to Queensland or go to Tasmania for a holiday, we do not want to be doing that departure testing in our state for those two states and we’ll make that very clear today.”

She said reviews were under way for close contact test requirements, and reducing them to one negative test.

She urged people to book in for their booster shot if eligible.

“It’s just so critical that everybody gets the third shot, so don’t worry that it’s Moderna or Pfizer, just go and get the one you can get today,” she said.