The decision wasn’t just because of the lies to contact tracers by the pizza bar worker, she said, but there were also broader considerations, with the need to act fast to get ahead of suspected community transmission absolutely paramount.
“We had one opportunity in South Australia to stamp this out,” Professor Spurrier said.
Chief Public Health Officer Nicola Spurrier. Getty
Prevention and precaution were at the forefront of her thinking, she said.
“That’s about acting swiftly,” Professor Spurrier also said. At this point there wasn’t any widespread community transmission, with all positive cases in quarantine.
SA Police Commissioner Grant Stevens on Saturday was also unrepentant, saying the right decision had been made to lock down the state, based on the information at the time.
“It is not a black and white situation that we’re dealing with,” Mr Stevens said.
Graduate student
Mr Stevens said the graduate student, who worked in the Stamford medi-hotel in the Adelaide CBD as a kitchen hand, was lawfully in the country.
“My advice is he’s lawfully in Australia on a temporary graduate visa,” he said.
Mr Stevens said there were other people connected to the pizza bar who the police task force wanted to speak to.
“We are interested in speaking to at least two other people,” he said.
Professor Spurrier said there were now 5400 close contacts or contacts of contacts in quarantine or self-isolation. SA has 37 active cases, with 26 in the Parafield cluster in Adelaide’s northern suburbs.
She said this particular strain of the virus had very short transmission times, which added to the sense of urgency in stamping out the virus.
“The next week for us is critical for our state,” she said.
She also praised a female junior doctor in the emergency department of the Lyell McEwin Hospital at Elizabeth in Adelaide’s north who attended to a woman in her 80’s and noticed she had an unusual cough on November 14.
Risk remains
SA Premier Steven Marshall said on Saturday that the right decision had been made at the time, based on the health advice.
“We listened to the health experts,” Mr Marshall said. He also warned that SA faced a grave challenge to stamp out the cluster. “The risk still remains. It’s a very real risk,” he said.
He reiterated that he was still extremely angry with the pizza bar worker who lied. “Quite frankly, there’s got to be consequences,” Mr Marshall said.
The new case on Saturday came after an extraordinary set of developments on Friday when Premier Marshall made a shock announcement that the six-day harsh lockdown had been triggered by the lies of the part-time pizza shop worker at the Woodville Pizza Bar.
The man originally told contact tracers he caught COVID-19 when collecting a pizza. But a few days on he admitted he had actually been working part-time at the Woodville Pizza Bar in Adelaide’s western suburbs.
His lie led health authorities to believe the coronavirus strain was highly contagious, with contact tracers rushing to contact hundreds of people who ordered food from the pizza bar over a 10-day period, sparking SA’s extreme six-day lockdown.
Health authorities now believe the kitchen hand probably became infected from another part-time worker at the pizza bar. That person worked as a security guard at a different medi-hotel, Peppers on Waymouth Street, and both have COVID-19.
SA Police announced late on Friday that a specialist taskforce of 20 detectives and analysts had been set up to investigate the Woodville Pizza Bar lies. The taskforce’ known as “Protect” is being headed by Assistant Commissioner Peter Harvey.
Premier Steven Marshall said on Friday he was ”absolutely fuming” over the man’s lying, which sparked the lockdown on Wednesday. The COVID-19 outbreak in South Australia on November 15 prompted snap border closures by other states and territories, underlining the deep divisions in the response to the pandemic.
“We’re absolutely livid with the actions of this individual,” Mr Marshall said.
Mr Stevens said on Friday the kitchen hand at the Stamford Hotel had lied to contact tracers about his after-hours activities. He had actually been working several shifts at the pizza bar, not just collecting a pizza order.
He said that had changed the focus of contact tracing and led to the decision to lift some restrictions immediately, with more to ease at midnight on Saturday.
“Had this person been truthful with the contact tracers, we would not have gone into a six-day lockdown,” Mr Stevens said.
The business community was furious with the situation. Business SA chief executive Martin Haese said the lie and the lockdown had threatened the state’s entire economy and exposed serious failings in the management of COVID-19.
“This is a cluster thud,” Mr Haese said.