[ad_1]
South Australia has immediately dropped its hard border arrangement with Western Australia and has reverted to a hot-spot model with Greater Perth.
The tough border restrictions were first implemented on Sunday, no longer allowing anyone from the state to enter South Australis.
Police Commissioner Grant Stevens said the rapid response was precautionary.
Mr Stevens – who is also the sate co-ordinator – on Monday said it was possible the border arrangements would ease once the state received more information about how the situation was being handled from its West Australian counterparts.
But, following the state’s Transition Committee meeting on Tuesday, he told reporters the border arrangement changed “effective immediately” to a hot-spot system.
It means only travellers from the lockdown zone in Greater Perth are not permitted to enter the state.
However, those from regional Western Australia can enter or leave their South Australian quarantine as long as they received a negative day one test result.
They also need to undergo testing on days five and 12.
“As a result of the advice of SA Health, in consultation with their counterparts in WA, we’ve made the decision to restrict our lockout for WA to just the area affected by the lockdown,” Mr Stevens said.
“It’s about the information provided by WA; monitoring their activity, the level of testing they’re undertaking, how they’re managing the contact tracing.
“At this point we’re comfortable we can constrict our level of restrictions to the Greater Perth area.
“This is a good step forward and a considered approach based on the information we received.”
Mr Stevens also revealed testing requirements for those coming from NSW would end on February 13, which will be 28 days since the last reported locally acquired case there.
“We’re at that point where they won’t need to have any obligations on them as they come in,” he said.
Premier Steven Marshall, who addressed the media prior to the announcement, said the advice received by his West Australian counterpart Mark McGowan was to close the border.
“We need to take a precautionary on approach,” he said.
“As more data comes in, we’ll be in a position to see how long those restrictions will need to be put in place.
“We’ve said from day one we don’t want to have restrictions in place for one day longer than they need to.”
Perth was thrown into a five-day lockdown after a COVID-19 hotel security guard – who also worked as an Uber driver – contracted the virus.
While unknowingly infectious with the UK variant, the man visited several locations across Perth.
The state’s Transition Committee will meet again on Friday.
[ad_2]
Source link
