Mystery over South Australia’s coronavirus outbreak

Three days after South Australians were forced into a snap six-day lockdown, authorities were forced into an embarrassing backdown.

As Victoria celebrated achieving “elimination” of the coronavirus in the state on Friday, neighbouring South Australia was facing questions about its response to the state’s worst ever outbreak.

On Sunday morning, SA Health issued an urgent warning for those who visited an Adelaide University campus over a two-week period, urging affected people to isolate immediately.

It came three days after alerts were issued for two shopping centres as an outbreak known as the Parafield cluster, widened.

Around 5000 people have been asked to quarantine and one school was closed after a student was found to have been infected with the coronavirus.

This new infection has been the latest twist in the state’s virus saga as it’s believed the student was infected at a pizza shop in Adelaide that’s been at the centre of the state’s outbreak.

A 35-year-old Spanish man was also thought to have caught the virus at the shop and his cases sparked the state’s short-lived lockdown, which was also partly fuelled by fears of a potential new “sneaky strain” of the virus that escaped out of hotel quarantine.

On the day the six-day lockdown was announced, South Australia’s chief health officer Professor Nicola Spurrier said that the virus appeared to have a very short incubation period.

“That means when somebody gets exposed, it is taking 24 hours or even less for that person to become infectious to others,” she told reporters on Wednesday, November 18.

Less than 24 hours later, the entire state was forced into an unprecedented lockdown from 12am, November 19, with people unable to leave their houses even for exercise.

This created havoc for businesses and couples who had their weddings cancelled with just a couple of days notice, as well as for some in hotel quarantine who were forced to restart their two-week isolation.

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Pro-Golfer Stephen Leaney is stuck in Peppers Hotel for another two weeks of quarantine. Picture: Keryn Stevens

However, the snap lockdown was lifted just three days later after the man was found to have lied and that he had actually worked at the shop.

It is not known why the man lied but the revelations left Premier Steven Marshall “fuming” at the worker. Some have pointed out that Mr Marshall may have been angry because he was humiliated.

“Having a situation where one lie told by a bloke who works at pizza joint could close down an entire state without his story being properly prosecuted is enormous,” ABC political editor Andrew Probyn told Insiders last Sunday.

The saga has raised questions about the state’s handling of the outbreak, which has now grown to 31 cases, and what the basis for the lockdown actually was. Here’s what we know.

HOTEL QUARANTINE WAS THE SOURCE OF INFECTIONS

Most of the cases in the Parafield cluster have been close contacts of a cleaner and two security guards who worked at Peppers Waymouth Hotel, which is being used to quarantine returned travellers in Adelaide CBD.

After looking through hundreds of hours of CCTV authorities now believe one of the security guards may have been the first person to get the virus from a guest, not the cleaner as originally suspected.

Prof Spurrier said “no significant breaches” have been identified that could have caused the outbreak and investigations are continuing into whether the virus could have been carried through the ventilation system.

PIZZA SHOP CONNECTION

A security guard at Peppers was also employed at Woodville Pizza Bar in Adelaide’s northwest, working alongside the Spanish national. In another confusing development, it later emerged that the Spanish national also worked a second job in the kitchen of another medi-hotel, the Stamford Plaza.

Once the cases were discovered, authorities asked anyone who attended the pizza bar between November 6 and 16, to self-quarantine for 14 days, along with others from their household.

But a student at Woodville High School got a takeaway pizza on Saturday, November 14, and went back to school nine days later on Monday, November 23, following the lifting of the state lockdown.

She tested positive on Wednesday night, which saw the school closed and all students and their families asked to go into quarantine. Authorities have now said only those in her year level need to isolate.

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Woodville Pizza Bar has been at the centre of a number of cases. Picture: Matt Turner.

Despite the fact that the student went back to school earlier than she should have, Prof Spurrier said that as far as she was aware, the young person had done everything right.

“We can’t make assumptions about what information people have, she followed what she believed to be the right information,” Prof Spurrier told reporters on Friday.

WHY ISN’T STATE GOING INTO ANOTHER LOCKDOWN?

Some experts thought South Australia’s first six-day lockdown was a bit of an over-reaction and it seems state authorities may have realised they were right.

Infectious diseases expert Professor Peter Collignon of Australian National University told news.com.au there has been no evidence of mystery transmission in the state, with all cases able to be linked to other contacts.

While there may have been initial concerns about the emergence of a different strain of the virus, Prof Collignon said this was always likely to be an overseas strain from Europe, the United Kingdom or the United States, given the case had likely originated from a returned overseas traveller.

“If you are making the assumption that the virus is radically different and that you want to put a statewide lockdown in, then you would want to double and triple check the data to make sure you are making the right presumption,” Prof Collignon said.

He said he assumes authorities in retrospect must have realised the lockdown was inappropriate “particularly as they stopped it after three days”.

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Premier Steven Marshall has fielded criticism of his handling of the coronavirus outbreak. Picture: Roy VanDerVegt/NCA NewsWire

Prof Spurrier told the ABC on Friday that the virus had been identified as being from the UK, although it was not a strain that they had seen in South Australia previously.

“We know there is nothing particularly special about it,” she said.

“But we knew when it came into South Australia, we had very short incubation times and that meant it was getting passed on very quickly to other people.”

Infectious diseases expert at the Australian National University, Associate Professor Sanjaya Senanayake told news.com.au that the student’s case coming a few weeks after the initial outbreak may also have reassured authorities that another lockdown wasn’t needed.

“We know the outbreak is not out of control and they seem to have a handle on it,” he said.

MYSTERY OVER HOTEL QUARANTINE INFECTIONS

Questions remain over how the virus was able to escape into the community from the state’s hotel quarantine system and more fears were raised after it was found a couple also contracted the virus during their stay at Peppers.

It’s unclear how the infection managed to circulate among those in Peppers but authorities have now announced plans to overhaul the state’s medi-hotel system.

People who test positive to the virus will be moved to another separate medical facility and its staff will not be allowed to work in other high-risk environments.

Premier Steven Marshall has fielded criticism for his handling of the outbreak in South Australia but has defended his decision to put the state into lockdown.

Asked whether he supports an independent inquiry into the medi-hotel program, Mr Marshall said there would be an investigation into the whole emergency response.

Some have pointed to the hotels’ slack COVID-19 testing regime with workers at medi-hotels only being tested if they had symptoms. In contrast farmers regularly travelling across the border with Victoria were being tested weekly even though there was no known virus in the region.

SA Health have now ordered all people working at the hotels be tested weekly.

Despite the criticisms, Prof Senanayake said the state appeared to have got control of the outbreak.

“Between November 12-26, there was initial exponential growth in those first few days, but the doubling times have now markedly slowed down — which is a good thing — with only 10 cases reported in the last week of that period,” he said.

But he warned that the state’s plan to move positive patients to a separate facility also came with its risks of cross contamination.

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