Coronavirus: SA Labor leader Peter Malinauskas among 1200 ordered to stay home
More than 1200 South Australians are in mandatory lockdown as the state scrambles to contain a coronavirus outbreak at a school specialising in ESL for refugees.
More than 1200 South Australians including the Opposition Leader and his education spokeswoman are in mandatory lockdown as the state scrambles to contain a coronavirus outbreak at a western suburbs school that specialises in ESL teaching for refugee and migrant youths.
South Australia now has 10 active coronavirus cases as two more emerged on Friday, with the most concerning cluster at the Thebarton Senior College whose students hail from the Middle East, the subcontinent and Africa.
A total of 1100 teachers, relatives and close contacts of the students have been ordered to remain at home in quarantine for a fortnight, including Opposition Leader Peter Malinauskas and Labor education spokeswoman Susan Close, who both visited the school last week.
In addition 94 of the school’s students have been placed in quarantine at a “medi-hotel” that is being managed by SA Police.
With SA having recorded zero cases on most days for the past two months, a dozen new cases emerged in the past fortnight, almost all of them sourced back to the mass outbreak in Victoria.
Health Minister Steven Wade said that the closest comparison for the SA outbreak was the cluster in Burnie, Tasmania, early in the pandemic when 1200 people were placed in a two-week lockdown after 60 cases were recorded. SA placed 1194 people in lockdown after recording five cases, with the State Government hopeful that early intervention would limit the spread.
Premier Steven Marshall this week reintroduced a cap of 100 on guests at weddings and funerals and a 10-person limit on visitors at private homes, but said his Covid Transmission Committee had decided against escalating any restrictions at its meeting on Friday.
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