Coronavirus: Steven Marshall’s South Australia lockdown clanger … with the lot

Business groups say the SA lockdown has set a dangerous precedent where governments close the economy on questionable evidence.

Skye Mundy of Port Wakefield with children Jye, 8, Tilly, 6, Logan, 5, and Aurora, 19 months wait for a COVID test at Gawler Sport and Community Centre on Friday. Picture: Tait Schmaal

Steven Marshall has been forced into a humiliating reversal of his total lockdown of two million South Australians after it emerged the government’s contact tracers had been duped by a part-time pizza worker.

Business groups said the lockdown set a dangerous precedent where state governments, police and health officials unilaterally closed the economy on the basis of questionable evidence.

A leading infectious diseases expert also warned the government had placed the state’s entire population into quarantine based on uncorroborated information that led health officials to incorrectly believe they had a unique and extremely virulent strain of the virus.

Mr Marshall effectively called off the lockdown after it emerged a lie by an infected medi-hotel worker — who was secretly working in a pizza bar — had sparked the move. The medi-hotel worker falsely told health authorities he had simply bought a pizza from the Woodville Pizza Bar at the centre of the Adelaide coronavirus cluster, sparking fears of widespread community transmission over the possibility he contracted the virus by handling a pizza box.

The man, a kitchen hand at the Stamford Hotel, was also working extended shifts as an employee of the pizza bar in close contact with another man who, like him, was working in hotel quarantine as a security guard at the Peppers Hotel. One of the men had infected the other, meaning the entire chain of infection can be traced to close contacts posing no threat to the wider community.

Because of the lie, every person who had bought pizzas from the store between November 6 and 16 had been ordered to self-isolate, more than 4000 people went into quarantine, almost every business and every school was closed, and supermarkets were stripped amid panic buying on Tuesday when the snap lockdown was announced.

Peter Collignon, an Australian National University infectious diseases physician and microbiologist, said medical experts needed to be very careful in relying on one piece of information that was radically different from what was ­already known, particularly when the consequences were so great.

Before realising a person with the disease worked at the pizza shop and did not simply just buy a pizza there, the state’s chief health officer Nicola Spurrier believed it was taking people 24 hours or less to become infected by the coronavirus. Mr Marshall called it a “particularly sneaky strain”.

Professor Collignon said it was more likely the coronavirus’s incubation period was about five days.

“Based on one bit of information that wasn’t corroborated they basically put two million people into quarantine,” Professor Collignon said.

“To take dramatic actions on something that is well out of the standard scientific evidence, which is what they were doing, you really have to have collaboration.”

SA Premier Steven Marshall reveals the lockdown blunder. Picture: David Mariuz

Mr Marshall and his police and health chiefs sheeted the blame onto the individual.

“To say I am fuming about the actions of this individual is an ­absolute understatement,” Mr Marshall said. “The selfish actions of this individual have put our whole state in a very difficult situation. His actions have affected businesses, individuals, family groups and is completely and utterly unacceptable.”

The lying pizza worker cannot be charged with anything as there is nothing in the existing state of emergency legislation that ­declares his actions an offence.

Mr Marshall said he would look at changing laws so that people could be charged for lying.

On Friday South Australian police formed a taskforce to investigate all of the information provided to the state’s coronavirus tracing teams.

Business groups demanded answers about why the government, health authorities and police acted so swiftly and aggressively on the basis of flawed information.

Australian Industry Group chief executive Innes Willox declared the “damage and destruction caused by this unnecessary lockdown” incalculable, questioning why it took 10 hours to close South Australia but 36 hours to reopen the state.

He said the debacle showed Australian could not let the economy be run “by a group of unelected officials” who he claimed had no understanding of the pain that had been inflicted on business.

Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive James Pearson said state lockdowns and border closures that turned out to be based on incorrect information underscored the need for governments to stick to the national framework and ­implement localised and targeted responses. “It is a cautionary tale for state and territory governments, but unfortunately one that has had a massive impact on the lives and livelihoods of South Australians and visitors to the state,” Mr Pearson said.

Business Council of Australia chief executive Jennifer Westacott applauded SA for getting the outbreak under control so quickly with effective contact tracing but warned the country could not afford continuous stop-start lockdowns of entire states without overwhelming scientific and medical evidence.

Chief Health Officer Nicola Spurrier. Picture: Getty Images

Scott Morrison said the easing of restrictions in South Australia from Sunday was a “good call” by Mr Marshall and he was encouraged they would not last “one moment longer than necessary”.

Hotels are demanding to know why, given the lockdown has been exposed as being based on false premises, they are still not allowed to re-open until Sunday.

SA Australian Hotels Association general manager Ian Horne said: “Why not allow those that can open Saturday morning? It makes no sense. SA’s reputation and advantage as the safest jurisdiction in the nation has been greatly diminished.”

Master Builders Association chief executive Ian Markos lambasted the handling of the lockdown. “If someone came to me and said we want to close every business and lock everyone inside their homes I would want to see some pretty good evidence first,” he said.

Police Commissioner Grant Stevens rejected the assertion that the lockdown was an over­reaction.

“No, we made a decision to go into the six-day lock down because of the fears in relation to the transmissibility of the strain of the COVID-19 virus and the number of people who had potentially been exposed,” Mr Stevens said.

“Had this person been truthful with the contact tracing teams, we would not have gone into a six-day lockdown.”

The hospitality industry has been hardest hit by the lockdown, losing millions not just from immediate closures but having almost all Christmas parties cancelled. Regional tourism has also been smashed with the cancellation of this weekend’s Schoolies celebrations.

There are now 25 cases linked to the Parafield cluster and a further 44 are suspected cases. All of the three new infections are in hotel quarantine and are close contacts of confirmed cases.