ADELAIDE, Australia — South Australia has tightened Covid-19 restrictions with Victoria, imposing measures on anyone arriving from the Greater Melbourne area.
Anyone coming to South Australia must take a virus test within 24 hours and self-isolate until they test negative.
Further tests on days five and 13 are required.
They are also banned from high-risk areas and must not attend any events with 1000 people or more.
The restrictions are on top of those already imposed in relation to high-risk locations in Melbourne, with the South Australian border closed to people who attended them at particular times.
They come after Melbourne’s cluster grew to 15 cases on May 26.
Meanwhile, South Australia officials are close to releasing a report into how a Victorian man caught Covid-19 while in hotel quarantine in Adelaide.
The man’s case is now believed to have sparked the Melbourne outbreak.
Deputy Chief Public Health Officer Emily Kirkpatrick said it was important for there to be complete transparency in the operation of the hotel quarantine system.
“It’s very, very important that we emphasize that hotel quarantine is a high-risk business, and we have to make sure whatever reports we put out to the community have been verified and provide accurate information,” she said. “It (the report) absolutely will be made public.”
Premier Steven Marshall said the government believed it had taken every precaution possible with the hotel quarantine system, but if the report identified even tighter levels of protection, they would be implemented immediately.
“This is going to be a very important report, but we want to get it right, not rushed,” he said. “I think we’ve been very open, very transparent on everything to do with Covid management since day one.”
As per reports by HealthDirect, non-essential travel in Australia includes unnecessary travel within your own area, visiting other towns and cities, and journeys interstate. The states and territories have different rules about what travel is allowed.
“Changes to travel restrictions form part of the Australian Government’s ‘Roadmap to a COVIDSafe Australia’, a 3-step plan to reopen the Australian economy,” states the report. “It is up to the states and territories to decide when they begin each step. These steps are in place to help slow the spread of Covid-19, along with other physical distancing guidelines that Australians need to follow.”
To help stop the spread of Covid-19, the Australian Government has banned overseas travel — excluding to New Zealand — unless necessary for business, aid assistance, or compassionate reasons. This is because there may be a higher risk of contracting Covid-19 overseas, and healthcare systems in some countries may be under pressure and may not be equipped to support foreigners.
As per World Health Organization, there are 30,021 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in Australia, and 910 deaths have been reported.
(Edited by Vaibhav Vishwanath Pawar and Saptak Datta, Map by Urvashi Makwana)
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