COVID close contact definition to remain at 15 minutes in South Australia, despite national overhaul

Less than 24 hours after South Australia signed off on a new definition of a close COVID-19 contact, the state’s Chief Public Health Officer says those rules won’t apply in SA.

Yesterday’s national cabinet meeting saw SA, NSW, Victoria, the ACT and Queensland all agree to reclassify a “close contact” as someone who has spent four hours or more with a confirmed case in a household-like setting.

But speaking to ABC Radio Adelaide this morning, Professor Nicola Spurrier said the four-hour rule had not been approved by the peak decision-making committee for public health, the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee (AHPPC).

“It’s not in the document that certainly I was involved with but, you know, I’m not at national cabinet.”

So, what does that mean for South Australians?

“The general premise is we’re not worrying about strangers, we’re trying to focus on people’s social groups, that’s household-like contacts, intimate partners,” Professor Spurrier said.

“Beyond that it may include the group you’re with at work a lot of the time. We’re also looking at transmission sites.”

SA Health took to social media in an attempt to clarify the rules.

As well as household contacts, the definition of ‘close contact’ in SA will include anyone who’s spent more than 15 minutes with an infected person in a “setting where there has been significant transmission.”

It’s also include anyone who’s had more than 15 minutes of face-to-face contact with a COVID-positive person in a high-risk community setting or workplace.

Now, both vaccinated and unvaccinated close contacts will be required to quarantine for 7 days.

SA Health also advised people to isolate in a different house to close contacts where possible.

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Restrictions to remain

Professor Spurrier said public health measures and social restrictions would likely remain in place for the whole of January.

“Certainly, January is going to be pretty tough.”

Former World Health Organization epidemiologist Adrian Esterman has projected South Australia’s daily COVID-19 numbers could grow to more than 6,000 by the end of January.

Professor Spurrier said official modelling was still being finalised.

“What is difficult to take into account is how the restrictions will work, how compliant people will be, the impact of boosters, and how effective our contact tracing is. They’re quite complicated things to put into a model,” she said.

“But we need to be doing that modelling because we have to plan for how many people will end up in hospital.

“We are expecting numbers to get quite large, but everything we do as individuals will help reduce that number.”