Morrison sends troops to save Christmas from South Australian coronavirus outbreak

PM will deploy defence force, contact tracing teams to South Australia in desperate bid to remove COVID ­restrictions by Christmas.

Scott Morrison at the CSL Lab in Melbourne on Monday. Picture: Getty Images

Scott Morrison will deploy ­defence force and contact tracing teams to South Australia and support rapid testing, in a desperate bid to keep domestic borders open and salvage the national cabinet plan to remove COVID-19 ­restrictions by Christmas.

Despite health authorities on Monday being hopeful of controlling the Adelaide COVID-19 ­cluster, Queensland, Western Australia, Northern Territory, Victoria and Tasmania declared the city a hotspot, forcing travellers to cancel flights or face mandatory hotel quarantine.

Tourism, aviation and industry chiefs slammed the reimposition of border restrictions as a “knee-jerk” response to a localised outbreak, warning that the nation must put its trust in existing COVID-19 contact tracing and social distancing measures.

Cricket Australia was holding emergency meetings with state health authorities on Monday night as the Adelaide outbreak threw the summer of cricket into chaos. The one-day and Twenty20 series against India, the first Test scheduled for Adelaide Oval on December 17 and the Big Bash League are now all in doubt.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said her state, which has successfully managed coronavirus clusters and community transmission, would not close its borders. “We need to live with COVID,” she said. “Everytime there’s an outbreak you can’t shut down borders, disrupt lives, disrupt businesses, and we need to have confidence not just in our own system but the system in other states to be able to get on top of the virus.”

South Australian Premier Steven Marshall in Adelaide on Monday. Picture: Getty Images

South Australian Premier Steven Marshall, who has cancelled inbound international flights this week, has accepted an offer from the Prime Minister for support from ADF personnel and National Incident Centre contact tracing teams. The commonwealth has also set up an aged-care response centre in South Australia.

Mr Morrison, who has pushed the national cabinet to reopen the economy and remove border ­closures by Christmas, was hopeful of achieving the goal but said it would “depend a lot on the disposition of various states and territories” and test confidence in testing and tracing systems.

“These have significantly improved,” the Prime Minister said. “It will be a strong test of the South Australian system in the days ahead. But the early signs are encouraging in how they are ­reacting to that and being able to track down the number of cases and they are very much concentrated in one family group.”

He said it was important states and territories designated “areas of the country (and) not entire states” as hotspots and then “quickly take them off again” when authorities gained control of the virus.

Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly held an emergency meeting of the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee on Monday with state and territory health officers to discuss the need to rollout mandatory testing of staff at quarantine hotels to help contain the virus.

South Australian health authorities, who have reintroduced COVID-19 social restrictions to combat the outbreak, said they were confident of shutting down the cluster, which was mainly contained to a large, extended family group.

Professor Kelly said he was confident state health authorities would be able to “get on top of this”. “It is not so much what has happened but how we respond to it — that is how we are going to defeat this virus,” he said.

Cars queue for the COVID-19 testing facility at Victoria Park, just outside the Adelaide CBD, on Monday. Picture: Kelly Barnes/Getty Images

Health Minister Greg Hunt said Professor Kelly’s advice was there remained no basis for any state or territory to shut borders.

The ADF, which has 104 staff on the ground including 80 people supporting quarantine management at seven hotels, will boost its deployment in support of South Australia Police. The South Australian COVID-19 breakout, six weeks before Christmas, has put national cabinet’s reopening framework under threat and sparked concerns that Australians would avoid domestic travel ahead of the summer holidays.

Mr Morrison said there were “no absolute failsafes” in protecting Australians from COVID-19.

“The virus hasn’t gone anywhere; it is still there,” the Prime Minister said. “It will seek to exploit any vulnerability, how small or great, and that is why there are layers to our defences. It is a very timely reminder here and all around the country, whether you have been behind borders or not, the virus doesn’t care.”

Qantas and Jetstar on Monday said they were considering scaling back flights to and from Adelaide over the next few weeks, as customers deferred flights. Qantas has offered flexibility for customers to move flights without paying a change fee.

Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce said localised outbreaks must not be used as a trigger to reimpose border closures. He said a national approach was required in relation to border closures, instead of “ad-hoc rules”. He said in some cases, there was “zero tolerance for any cases occurring before the borders are closed”.

“We had a flight 20 minutes from landing in to Western Australia when we heard the news that people would have to go and quarantine and had to give people the option to go back to South Australia from Western Australia,” Mr Joyce said. “You know, it’s the same as driving. You wouldn’t be out there driving if you wanted to take zero risk. We have traffic lights, speed limits, we have testing for alcohol. We have a whole series of protections that are put in place that will allow us to do things.

“We’ll have to learn to live with this virus and using tracking and ­tracing in the various states, which has been very effective, has to be the way to manage this going ­forward.”

Australian Tourism Industry Council executive director Simon Westaway said he was concerned to see state leaders “tripping over themselves” on border restrictions. “It sends a concerning message because there’s every chance we’ll have these clusters until we get a vaccine,” he said.

“The fear is it will create uncertainty for people intending to travel. They need to hold the line.”

Mr Westaway said it was ­imperative for authorities to put in place rapid, antigen testing ­arrangements to support tourism and warned mandatory two-week quarantine measures would not instil confidence in travellers. “There are a number of ­companies working on this,” he said. “Antigen testing is very simple, consumer friendly and has delivered good results. Let’s hope that authorities pull that as a lever.”

A spokesman for Mr Hunt said that, at this stage, rapid antigen tests should only “be used for public health investigation purposes in certain contexts and situations under medical supervision”.

Australian Industry Group chief executive Innes Willox said “a kneejerk border closure sends a clear but terrible message to investors and nationally focused employers that there can be no regulatory certainty to doing business in Australia”.