SA Premier still hopes to open border despite concerns of NSW taxi driver case

SA Premier Steven Marshall says the NSW taxi driver case is ‘a concern’ but hopes to open the borders as soon as it’s safe.

South Australia’s Premier still has his eye on opening the state’s border to NSW, despite having ‘some concern’ surrounding a case involving an infected taxi driver in Sydney.

Steven Marshall on Monday said SA Health’s chief public medical officer Nicola Spurrier was working closely with NSW Health to gather information about the case.

Over the weekend, a Western Sydney taxi driver — who worked for nine days while infectious — tested positive to COVID-19.

Despite some South Australians being against opening the border to NSW, Mr Marshall said the authorities listened to expert health advice which has put the state in “really good stead so far”.

South Australian Police stopping vehicles near the SA border. Picture: Kelly Barnes

“We’ve had another good day with four new infections but all of them we have the epilink (traced community source). The most concerning issue is the infection of the taxi driver,” he said.

“We should have all the information that’s needed tomorrow for the Transition Committee meeting. It doesn’t mean they’ll make the decision then but it should be there so they can either decide to lift the borders or push it off to Friday’s Transition Committee meeting or maybe a future meeting.

“It’s super hard for people from a family dislocation perspective so we will lift that border as soon as it’s safe to do so but we’re not going to rush it. We need to make sure we don’t have a second wave in SA.

“But, we are hoping we can get the border with NSW open this week.”

Mr Marshall said he could not see a move to lift the hard border with Victoria “for some time” but when it did, a two week self-isolation period was likely.

Const Ashleigh Broadbent near the SA border 5kms east of Pinnaroo. Picture: Kelly Barnes

“Yes, the numbers there are tracking well but they’re still in stage four restrictions,” he said.

“At the moment, (allowing Victorians to enter the state) is on a case-by-case basis. The numbers going across the border has increased — I know yesterday it was about a thousand and on Sunday last week it was closer to 3000 so there is a different level of scrutiny applied now to each application compared to four to six weeks ago.

“We’ll continue to change our assessment criteria and framework based upon the risk.”

Under current restrictions, all jurisdictions can enter SA without quarantining except for NSW and Victoria.

Residents coming from NSW need to self-isolate for two weeks while only essential travellers with pre-approved applications can enter from Victoria.

Four new cases of #COVID19 were diagnosed in the 24 hours to 8pm last night.

Of the four new cases:
- 3 are returned overseas travellers in hotel quarantine
- 1 is locally acquired linked to a known case or cluster pic.twitter.com/GZen7omOMF

— NSW Health (@NSWHealth) September 21, 2020

NSW recorded four new infections on Monday.

Of that, three were from hotel quarantine facilities. The fourth was locally acquired being a household contact of a confirmed case.

Victoria recorded 11 new infections and two deaths.