Thousands of lives saved under South Australia’s Covid strategy, figures suggest

The tough and sweeping defence against Covid in South Australia spared thousands of lives, new figures suggest, as the state prepares to reopen.

Thousands of deaths have been spared thanks to South Australia’s closed borders and Covid restrictions, authorities have revealed.

As the state prepares to reopen borders Tuesday and let in 10,000 people from eastern states, official data has laid bare the stark death rate it would have suffered had the Delta disease been able to spread.

SA Health figures show at least 4400 people would have died from contracting Covid-19 if the state had recorded the same death rates per population as Britain.

In stark contrast, just four South Australians have so far lost their lives to coronavirus from 922 cases. More than 144,000 people have died in the UK, where there have ben at least 8.77 million cases.

Police commissioner Grant Stevens and Professor Nicola Spurrier. Picture: Naomi Jellicoe

More than 10,000 fully vaccinated people are expected to travel from NSW, Victoria and the ACT Tuesday, when the borders open for the first time since late June.

SA Health has boosted its “vital” contact-tracing teams in preparation for an expected surge of cases. There are 150 contact tracers ready with another 150 on standby.

Authorities have called for applications to fill “multiple vacancies”. Police Commissioner Grant Stevens said the data showed restrictions – while tough on business – had spared SA from Covid deaths.

“That is the advice from SA Health – that if we hadn’t taken the steps that we did take, then I think we would have seen a very different picture in South Australia, probably replicating what we saw in NSW and Victoria,” he said.

“And that includes statewide shutdown, lockdowns of businesses, only essential services operating for months and months. As challenging as it has been in SA from a business and economic perspective, we’re in a far better position than had all those businesses been required to be shut for extended periods for into weeks and months. Nobody would have wanted that. And it would have been far more devastating for business. I’m hoping people can see the balance. We’ve found it challenging but think it could have been far worse had we taken a different approach to how we managed Covid.”

Mr Stevens, who authorises all legal directions as state co-ordinator, urged people to keep following the rules, such as QR code check-ins.

He also encouraged people to get vaccinated. The state’s vaccination rate on Sunday was 86.8 per cent for first dose and 76.9 per cent for second.

Francesco “Frank” Ferraro, 75, Linda Lavender, 62, Malcolm “Mal” Todd, 76, and Roger Leaney, 74, are the state’s only Covid-19 related tragedies – all dying in a harrowing six-day period in April last year.

The devoted grandparents died in isolation in Royal Adelaide Hospital’s intensive care unit after suffering catastrophic organ failures while in induced comas.

Sandi Todd holding a frame of photographs of her husband, Stephen Lavender with his wife Linda’s, Veronica Leaney,holding her husband Roger’s and Elisabetta Ferraro with Frank’s. Picture: Matt Turner.

Their grieving families have said the four would have “eagerly been vaccinated” if vaccines had been available but didn’t launch until February this year.

An SA Health spokeswoman said the high vaccination rate put the state in a good position to reopen.

“Unlike other jurisdictions, we are in the fortunate position to have been able to minimise community transmission of Covid-19 and bring our vaccination rate much closer to 80 per cent before safely reopening our borders and easing restrictions,” she said.

“The restrictions that will remain once our borders reopen will be critical in ensuring community transmission is contained, and that our healthcare system is not overwhelmed.

“We should all feel confident that – alongside our high vaccination rate and the public health measures we have all become well accustomed to in our everyday lives – we will be in the best-placed position going forward into the pandemic.”

Pandemic Emergency Response Act no more

Key Covid-19 emergency laws are to be abandoned as the state prepares to open up to the Delta strain.

The Covid-19 Emergency Response Act, which came into effect in April last year, supports Police Commissioner Grant Stevens’ extensive powers to manage the pandemic.

It is currently due to expire on December 1.

The government had launched a bid to expend the critical legal framework past the next state election in late March.

But amid turmoil over Attorney-General Vickie Chapman and despite having sought an almost eight-month extension in August, Premier Steven Marshall has now said the laws are not needed.

“We did put that in place in the early days of the pandemic,” he said.

“It was important to put it there because we weren’t sure how it was going to roll out whether we needed to have special powers in place. We’ve virtually not used these at all.”

Mr Stevens, who authorises all legal directions as state co-ordinator, said his advice was the laws did not change his role.

They also cover aspects such as restrictions on rent increases, terminations of tenancy agreements and alternative methods of signing and witnessing documents.

“While (it) does provide an abundance of clarity on some matters and provides some concessions in some activities around residential tenancies and other things, the advice I have is that is not necessarily critical to the ongoing management of covid using the Emergency Management Act,” he said.

Mr Stevens can revoke the 28-day emergency declaration that enforces Covid responses such as restrictions, mask wearing and QR code use.

He must seek cabinet approval for any extension, which the Governor then approves. It has been extended 22 times.

Originally published as Thousands of lives saved under South Australia’s Covid strategy, figures suggest