No new COVID-19 cases in SA after lockdown, but warning over ‘hoax’ quarantine text messages

South Australia has recorded no new locally acquired cases of COVID-19 for the second day in a row.

The state’s week-long lockdown — imposed in response to the Modbury cluster, which remains at 19 cases — ended at midnight.

“[It’s] wonderful to have zero cases again today,” Chief Public Health Officer Nicola Spurrier said.

Premier Steven Marshall said restrictions announced yesterday will be in place for at least seven days, including new requirements to wear masks.

“The very, very good news is there were no new cases overnight so still it stands at 19 people associated with this cluster, with this outbreak, in South Australia so that’s great news — absolutely fantastic news,” he said.

“We’re out of lockdown and the people of South Australia should feel a great sense of pride over what we have done over the last seven, eight days.”

Professor Spurrier said two cases, a man and a woman in their 80s, both remain in hospital “in a stable condition”.

“They are stable, which is excellent given their age — they haven’t had to go to ICU, so really pleasing,” she said.

Hoax quarantine text messages sent out

Professor Spurrier said some exposure sites had been downgraded and removed from the SA Health list, allowing some people to come out of quarantine.

But she warned of a hoax text message that had been sent out providing incorrect information about quarantine requirements.

“I’m sure all South Australians would be quite irritated to hear about that.

“If you do get a message from SA Health, it will never have a phone number attached to it.

“It will not be asking you to phone back, it will be directing you to our website, so that’s a couple of points in case you received that or know about it.”

Students and teachers today returned to high school classrooms, where mandatory mask-wearing is now in effect.

“I know that this is going to be something different for high school students this morning, getting your masks out and wearing them in the school situation,” Professor Spurrier said.

“They absolutely understand what’s going on, I’m sure, and I don’t think they will find this a great deal of bother so, please, parents, support your young people their mask-wearing and, of course, the other rules that the school will have put in place during this period of time.”

More than 16,000 coronavirus test results were returned yesterday, and mask-wearing is still mandatory in a range of public settings.

Thousands of people have returned to work across the state, with masks “strongly” recommended in workplaces.

“That’s what gives us the confidence that as we ease those restrictions, we won’t be going back into a lockdown situation.”

Repatriation flights have resumed in South Australia, after a temporary ban.

“A couple of days ago, I did say we were looking at what we could do to bring stranded South Australians back. We haven’t finalised that at the moment,” Mr Marshall said.

“There are probably thousands of South Australians who are stranded, the majority of them are overseas but we also have people in states we have restrictions in place for at the moment, in particular New South Wales.

“We’re very cognisant that we want to get those people back, but we also have to observe our highest priority which is to protect South Australia.

“This last week has been extraordinarily tough, so we are taking precautions and backing SA Health with their exemptions process.

“They are working through them as quickly as they can, but it is going to be tough to bring all those people back to South Australia.”

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